By Any Other Name
by Liannabob
Summary: A Clint/Hansel mindswap fic with a whole lot more plot than that statement might imply. I mean, lots of crossover shenanigans, of course. But also a plot. Please enjoy.


Originally posted at Archive of Our Own. I recommend reading it there – this was preeeeeetty much just cut and paste and there might be some formatting kerfuffles.

**By Any Other Name**

by Liannabob

Summary

A Clint/Hansel mindswap fic with a whole lot more plot than that statement might imply. I mean, lots of crossover shenanigans, of course. But also a plot.

Please enjoy.

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Warnings/pairings/additional tags:

Natasha/Hansel, Clint/Coulson, Steve & Gretel, Clint/Natasha, Mindswap, Humor, Kinda distirubing sex scene (not noncon or anything, just kinda unhealthy), Bad coffee pot etiquette, Masturbation, Domestic, A general fixing of things, Angst, Fluff, Bamfery.

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**Chapter 1**

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Okay but seriously, please read on Archive of Our Own. /works/670908

It's just all around better formatting.

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Fucking Asgard.

Fucking magic.

Fucking green-wearing megalomaniacal douche-nozzles.

The baddie-of-the-day was a blonde in a skin-tight getup that made Clint wonder whether she was using magic to keep her ample assets secured or adhesive, because that sure as hell wasn't happening on its own.

The bitch had popped up in Queens and by all reports had immediately started causing trouble. Agents on site had been able to confirm that most of the initial sightings of fantastic monsters had been illusions. The Avengers had already been en-route by then, and "most" was noticeably not "all."

Iron Man was already engaging what Clint thought was a chimera when he touched the quinjet down with the rest of them.

"Have I mentioned I hate magic?" Stark's voice came down their line as he finished blasting a hole through the lion-scorpion thing's chest. The beast flopped over, sizzled and dissolved into a green mist. "Because I hate magic."

The woman laughed gleefully, leaning against her knees to stare down at them. She was about twenty feet off the ground; not standing on a damn thing, just levitating there smugly.

"Tell me, pretty little mortals, where is Thor?"

"Ma'am, Thor is in Asgard." Steve called up after a pause, no doubt weighing the pros and cons of divulging that.

She scowled down.

"Liar. Liar. I've seen him with you." She sent a blast of green energy towards him that Steve deflected with his shield.

"Banner, we might need you to suit up here in a minute." Steve said.

"A lot of civilians still in the area." Bruce pointed out.

Widow and Iron Man were fighting something that bore more than a passing resemblance to a saber-toothed tiger. Steve was in the square below the woman, keeping her attention and dodging the blasts of energy she kept sending his way. Banner was in the quinjet, running an analysis of her magic and Clint was sat perched on top of a nearby church, picking off the smaller monsters she'd conjured. SHEILD had advised on a diplomatic resolution if at all possible, which was the only reason Clint hadn't shot her in the eye the moment they touched down.

"Enough of this." The woman snapped, and tendrils of green light wrapped around Steve, shield and all, and threw him into a wall hard enough to crack the bricks.

"Tell me where Thor is now, or I'll-"

Clint mentally declared diplomicy unviable, and shot.

She spun and caught the arrow before it could bury itself in the back of her skull. She smirked at him over her shoulder, and Clint had to wonder if they practiced that on Asgard.

She looked at him, then blinked and dropped the arrow in surprise.

...which was unfortunate, as that meant it detonated at her feet rather than next to her face.

She rocked forward, tumbling and losing control of whatever was letting her hover there, and hit the ground hard.

Steve rushed forward but she waved a hand and he froze on the spot. She hadn't looked away from Clint for a moment.

"Oh damn." He said into the comms.

"Barton?" Natasha grunted, and Clint could hear her weapon discharging.

"You." The woman hissed, and immediately, without visibly moving, she was in front of him.

"Fuck!" He barked.

She ripped the bow from his hands and flung it to the street. She blocked the knife he whipped out to stab her, and then her hands were on his neck, lifting him and bodily slamming him against the wall.

"Didn't you learn last time, boy?" She pulled him up and slammed him back hard enough that Clint was momentarily stunned.

"What last time?" He grunted, scrabbling at her hands.

Iron Man appeared behind her. Clint kept his eyes on her, not giving his position away.

She flung a hand back and Tony dropped in a cloud of green fog, thankfully hitting the roof rather than the street.

"Playing coy doesn't suit you. I'm sure your lovely sister did not find me so forgettable."

"Lady, what the fuck are you talking about?" He spat, channeling his fear into anger.

She pressed into his space, laying her stomach flat against his groin, her breasts against his armor.

She smelled like apples.

Of course she did.

Her fingernails dug firmly into his neck and her eyes bore into his, the green of them glittering with power in an uncomfortably similar fashion to Loki's.

She stared hard, not moving, and Clint felt an itching, slimy sensation in his brain, an invasion that wasn't physical.

He panicked, terrified, but the blue haze of possession didn't come over him. It was uncomfortable but when she loosened her grip, Clint was still himself.

He took a shaky breath, relieved breath, heart still pounding. She hadn't loosened her grip enough for him to get free, but he'd take 'not mind controlled' as a damn good starting point.

"Truly? Oh," She laughed, "Oh, oh, oh, this is too good, this is much too good. I could not have crafted a more perfect vessel." She smirked in sadistic pleasure, and Clint thrashed to free himself, not at all liking the look she gave him.

"Say goodbye, boy."

Clint felt a squeezing in his mind, a pressure that made him scream, made his eyes roll back in his head.

It lasted an excruciating length of time, and then everything fell away to darkness.

"-up, c'mon, move your ass."

A hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

Clint snapped back to full alertness immediately, grabbing the person shaking him by the upper arm and spinning to pin them to the ground.

The person – the woman – rolled with the impact, springing out of his grip with a fluidity he associated with Natasha and no one else.

This wasn't Natasha.

She crouched out of his range, head tilted in fond concern.

"Bad dreams?" She asked.

She was beautiful. Pale, with dark hair and dark eyes and a fondness for form-fitting leather.

"What?" His throat was so dry it hurt. His head throbbed with pain.

He glanced around.

"Where the fuck am I?" He barked. "And who are you?"

Was this a goddamned cave?

"Hansel?" She frowned, reaching out a hand to his face.

He batted it away sharply, too on edge to be touched.

There was a sound from behind him, deep and displeased, that made Clint think of a bear. He turned his head warily, not wanting to look away from the girl but not wanting to leave whatever could make a sound like that unassessed.

The… thing, met his eyes and glowered.

Clint scrambled towards the woman, liking his odds with her better.

The Hulk-like thing rose, flexing its hands.

"Edward, it's alright. Hansel, what's going on?" She reached for his face again.

Clint stared.

The battle came rushing back to him, that squeezing in his head, the magic, the darkness.

The conversation beforehand.

He looked at this woman, distress starting to show at the corners of her eyes when he backed away from her fingers again.

"Are you… my sister?" He asked, the words feeling ridiculous in his mouth.

"Hansel, this isn't funny."

"Yeah, okay," Clint rubbed his eyes, "We have a problem here. I'm not Hansel."

Hansel groaned and rolled over, stretching a hand out for his weapon or sister. Either would do.

His head ached.

He pressed his cheek into his coat and let his hand fall empty against the cave floor and breathed through the throbbing behind his eyes for a while.

His coat smelled wrong.

He cracked an eye, and then both. He stared stupidly at the pillow where his coat should be. He was out of the – holy fuck, BED – and reeling when his feet hit the cold, smooth floor a moment later.

He was in a white room that he sure as hell hadn't fallen asleep in.

"Gretel?" He coughed. God, his throat was dry.

The room was empty.

He was wearing soft, ridiculous clothing. Thin to the point of useless, a dangerously eye-catching blue. His feet were bare.

"Gretel!" He yelled. The door, when he tried to open it, was locked.

Where were his weapons? Where was his sister? Where the fuck was he?

He kicked the door, bare foot smarting against the metal – god, metal. Who the hell made metal doors? He kicked again. Again.

The door opened and he barely caught his balance in time.

There was a slender, red-haired woman on the other side of the door, a large blond man behind her in the hallway.

"Barton." She said, eyeing him carefully. Hansel was used to that look, that assessment of how things would go in a fight with him.

"Where is my sister?"

Her eyes widened. She tapped her ear – or, no, the device in her ear, Hansel saw.

"We have a problem." She said.

Hansel entirely agreed.

**Chapter 2**

"We have a problem," She said, and gave him a look that warned him not to move.

Hansel tensed.

The woman relaxed and gave him a reassuring smile.

Hansel tensed further.

"What is this place?" He demanded. "Who are you people, and where the FUCK is Gretel?"

"Son, calm down." The big blond said. Hansel glared at him. A third man walked up, less of an obvious threat with his smaller frame and glasses perched unevenly on his nose, but he was still one more stranger between Hansel and a way out.

Hansel grabbed what he'd thought was a glass jar, ready to break it and use it as a weapon if he needed to, but it was far too light. He was so surprised he took his eyes off the three to stare at the not-glass in his hand.

The woman moved forward and Hansel backed into the room, wanting space if it came to blows.

She paused in the doorway.

"My name is Natasha. This is Steve and Bruce. Who are you?" The woman – Natasha – said, indicating herself and the men behind her.

"Hansel."

"Hansel." Bruce repeated.

Hansel nodded.

"And – did I hear you say your sister's name is Gretel?" He asked, giving Hansel a disbelieving look. It was different from the awe-struck adoration of the scrawny youths that hero-worshipped them. This had an edge of amusement to it, and Hansel bristled.

"Okay, Hansel," Natasha smoothed, ignoring Bruce, "You've got a few options here. You could fight us, you could try to run, or you could cooperate with us. I recommend the last one."

Hansel snorted. "You would." He turned the weird jar over in his hands and decided it could be a decent projectile, even if it wasn't glass.

"You will lose that fight. You will not be able to leave. But if you cooperate with us," She said firmly, answering his glare with one of her own, "It'll get you back to your sister that much faster." She finished, eyebrow raised in challenge.

"You do have Gretel." He said, anger flaring.

"No," She said immediately, sincerely, and Hansel believed her.

A pit opened in his stomach.

"We believe you've been part of a magical attack," Bruce said, tucking the stem of his glasses into the collar of his shirt. He clasped his hands casually in front of himself.

"A witch?" Hansel asked sharply, and then thought: how fucked is my life that the possibility of a witch makes me feel steadier?

"I'm going to go with 'yes' on that one. It sounded like she had some history with, I think, you."

Hansel tipped his head.

"What did she look like?"

"Blonde," Natasha answered. "Hair down to here," She held a hand below her ribs, "Wore green."

"Did she mention someone named 'Thor'?" He asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Yes!" Steve perked up.

Hansel set the jar down on the table with a dissatisfying light 'thunk.'

"Amora." He said. "God damn it." He rubbed his eyes.

"Amora?" Bruce prompted.

Hansel dropped his hand and looked at them. Steve's face was ridiculously earnest, Bruce so much of a non-combatant that Hansel's eyes almost glided right over him.

And Natasha. The way she held herself, the way she looked at him; it made him think of Gretel so completely that her absence sent a pang through him.

He nodded to himself and decided to trust them for the time being.

"Give me back my clothes and weapons and I'll tell you the story."

Natasha tapped the device at her ear again.

"Bring me Barton's clothes." She ordered.

"Who's 'Barton?'" Hansel asked.

"Barton is the man you're currently wearing."

Hansel twitched.

"Excuse me?"

"This is our friend's body," Bruce said, hand sweeping in his direction.

Hansel looked down at his hands, but they looked like his hands. His nails maybe looked cleaner, a few lines where he didn't remember them, but his freckles were exactly where they always were. These were definitely his hands. He touched his face, and then frowned at them.

"…no?" He tried. "Do you have a mirror?"

"Come." Natasha turned and strode away. Bruce followed with a glance at Hansel. Steve gestured for Hansel to precede him.

Hansel didn't like having the big blond at his back, but curiosity was getting the better of him.

The hallway was more of the disturbingly clean, rigid right angles, more metal doors and thin stone floors.

Natasha opened a door and waved him in, fingers doing something on the wall that caused the dark room to flood with light.

He twitched sharply, hand going for a weapon he wasn't carrying.

"Not big on electricity where you're from?" Bruce asked wryly.

"What?"

"The helicarrier's going to be fun." Bruce muttered, almost to himself.

Hansel glared. He glanced up and realized all the lights were strange. His skin prickled with unease.

"Hansel," Natasha said softly, and waved for him to enter the room.

There was a mirror visible inside, on the wall over a basin.

Hansel stepped into the little room, not sure what he was expecting to see. The idea of wearing another man's body unsettled him, made his heart pound. He wasn't sure he wanted to see, now that he was here. Gretel would have called him on his cowardice if she'd been here, but she wasn't. She wasn't.

Natasha frowned at his hesitation, and that was the push he needed to man up.

He stood in front of the mirror, braced himself, and slowly looked up.

And blinked.

He huffed a laugh, relief making his knees weak for a moment.

"I think you're mistaken," He said, turning back to them. "This is my face."

"Lift your shirt." Natasha said quietly.

Hansel glanced at Bruce and Steve.

"A little forward, don't you think?"

She gave him exactly the unimpressed look he knew so well from his sister.

"Look at his scars." She told him flatly.

Hansel paused again, but pulled up the shirt.

He stared at the flesh of his belly split by a long, white mark that certainly wasn't his. Circular puckers and the smears of burn marks dotted his skin.

There was a smudge of black peeking up from the pants, running along his hip. He nudged the waistband down and saw a tattoo.

He dropped the shirt and stared at Natasha, feeling abruptly ill and unsteady.

"Well, fuck." He said, with feeling.

**Chapter 3**

The woman glared at him.

"That isn't funny."

"No," Clint agreed readily, "No, it really isn't."

He ran his hands over his body, checking for injuries, looking in the pockets of these unfamiliar clothes.

Bullets, metal coins, tack, a vial full of clear liquid, a garroting wire. Knives and more ammo at his belt.

His ribs felt a little tender down his left side. He shifted his weight and felt a soreness that he hoped was just a bruised tailbone. His knuckles were scratched and scabbed and his head still pounded. He was thirsty.

He'd been worse.

The boots were heavy. The clothes were thick, obviously used for armor. His arms were left bare, he noted, pleased that his mobility wasn't going to be hampered.

Clint picked up the… gun? He regarded it. Gun. Weird design, but definitely a weapon he could use. Christ, with the weight of the thing, it'd be effective as a bludgeon even if it wasn't loaded.

"Hansel?" The woman had a crossbow across her back, a gun at her hip, knives in her boot and strapped to her thigh.

She reminded him strongly of Natasha.

The fear creeping into her eyes was enough to dispel the association.

He turned away and walked towards the light at the mouth of the cave, wanting to get his bearings.

The Hulk-thing, Edward, grunted in displeasure.

Clint kept moving steadily and slowly, not running even though his skin was prickling because running was a sure-fire way to trigger a prey impulse, and he did not want to get in a fight with that thing. He didn't like his odds.

The cave opened on an expanse of yellow dessert. There were enough cacti around that he didn't think they were too far outside of civilization. Impossible to pin down a location with so little information, though.

He felt the girl come up behind him, silent as a cat in a way Clint thought was more habit than intention.

"Where are we?" He asked.

A little ways in the distance, there was a solitary figure coming towards them, lopsided with the weight of whatever he was carrying.

"The desert," She said flatly. "Why do you say you're not my brother?"

"What are we doing here?"

"No," She said sharply, her body whipcord tense. "I answered your question; you answer mine."

Clint looked at the white-knuckled fist she had wrapped around the handle of the knife at her belt.

He met her eyes and decided not to point out that she hadn't actually answered his question. She was scared and armed and it seemed like a bad idea.

"My name is Clint Barton. I was in a fight…. Yesterday, maybe? She used magic, did something to my mind. This is not where I'm supposed to be."

"Clint Barton," She said, and snorted. "That's a stupid name, Hansel, and this joke isn't funny."

"'Hansel' is so much better? What would that make you, 'Gretel?'"

She punched him in the arm, fast and hard.

"It's been five days since the witch. What are you doing?" She hissed at him.

Clint rubbed his arm and stared at her.

"Wait, are you actually Gretel? Hansel and Gretal? Fuck me. Fucking magic. And I've got to know, what's his deal?" Clint said, nodding at... Edward.

Gretel flicked her eyes to him and back.

"He's a troll." She said. There was a silent 'duh' tacked on the end, like Clint should know that. Like trolls were a thing.

Clint somehow doubted he'd have a lot of luck contacting SHIELD to report this.

Something on his wrist started buzzing and vibrating. He frowned at the device strapped there, eyeing the mechanism for a moment. He twisted it and it fell silent.

Gretel looked at him expectantly.

Clint slung the gun across his back. Whatever was going on here didn't feel like it was going to be a fight.

The weapon hung against him perfectly, the straps clearly sized to him.

The figure Clint had spotted earlier was close enough now that Clint could see it was a young man. The boy raised an arm in greeting, noticing Clint noticing him, and then had to immediately fumble that hand back in place as the bag he was carrying slipped.

Clint felt a wave of fatigue hit him. He locked his knees and waited for it to pass.

He shook his head roughly when it didn't, pressing fingers against his eyelids.

He wavered and made the executive decision that sitting down would be better than falling down. He slid against the cave wall until his ass hit sand. His bruised tailbone didn't thank him.

"What's wrong with me?" He asked Gretel when she simply continued to watch him, clearly waiting for something.

"Edward, my bag." She called over her shoulder, not looking away from him. Her features were tight with a mix of fear and resolve.

Edward lumbered forward and handed her a dark leather satchel. She drew a syringe from it.

"Oh, hey, what -?" Clint started.

She pushed a hand against his chest, shoving him back against the wall and jabbed him in the thigh. God, she reminded him of Nat.

She met his wide-eyed gaze levelly. For a long moment they just stared at each other.

And then Clint felt whatever she'd injected him with take a hold. The weakness in his limbs faded and his shaking steadied.

"What's wrong with me?" He asked again.

Gretel returned the syringe to the bag and pet Edward on one large hand, smiling up at him approvingly.

"Sugar sickness." She took Clint's wrist and twisted the mechanism the rest of the way. "You take your medicine when the alarm winds down, or you die."

"Sugar sickness. Diabetes? Did I get it from eating a house made of candy?" He muttered, tone sullen and mocking. Diabetes. This might be a problem.

Gretel gave him an unimpressed look.

"Wait, DID I get it from eating a house made of candy?" He repeated incredulously.

"You said you fought a witch yesterday," She said, ignoring him, "Describe her."

Clint frowned, not quite ready to let the candy-house thing go (because, seriously? Hansel and Gretel and witches? Someone was clearly fucking with him), but he answered anyway.

"Blonde hair, green eyes, fantastic tits." He held cupped hands in front of his chest, indicating the size. Gretel narrowed her eyes. "Tight green outfit." He added hastily.

"Amora." Gretel breathed. "We ran across her maybe four months ago. She was different than the others. Her magic could touch us. She pulled my shoulder out of place - nearly pulled it off, felt like. And… she swapped Edward's and Ben's minds." Gretel's gaze on him was fierce.

"Gretel," Clint asked tightly, "Did they swap back?"

She nodded. "After about a week. It was a long week."

"How did you get her to fix it?"

"We didn't. She disappeared right after she made the switch and mocked us. We couldn't find her again, and we looked hard. We thought they were going to be stuck like that, but in the middle of a job they just," She crossed her hands. "We don't know if she undid it, or if it was something that had a time limit, or if it was something the witch we were fighting did."

"Terrific." Clint muttered. "Wait," He added as something occurred to him, "Do you have a mirror?"

She gave him a level look, then pulled a slim rectangular case from her pocket and passed it to him. Clint carefully did not make a comment, knowing Natasha would have stabbed him if he accused her of being girly.

He flicked it open and regarded himself.

"Well. Yeah, she was not wrong."

"What?"

"Amora. She said I looked like your brother."

Clint turned his face and checked himself out from every angle he could manage.

It was uncanny.

He passed the mirror back.

He pulled the gun around and off his back and started examining it.

"My brother made that." She told him. She knelt next to him and showed him the loading mechanism. "He's so clever, and such an idiot. Tell me," She demanded quietly, "Tell me he will be alright in your body."

Clint put the gun in his lap and cupped her shoulders, firmly.

"He will be alright. My team will keep him safe, I promise."

Clint didn't remind her he'd been in the middle of a fight when he'd been swapped. He didn't tell her that his status at SHIELD was still flagged from Loki taking his mind, and that this, so soon after, stood a good chance of having him locked in quarantine or worse. Clint didn't trust the WSC not to run tests on him.

It wouldn't help, and she didn't need to hear it.

He really hoped his body was okay.

The boy Clint had seen earlier had reached the mouth of the cave and stumbled in, panting, and dropped his burden carefully.

"Ohhhh, my god why is water so heavy." He moaned. He pressed his hands to the small of his back and stretched, finally glancing over at them.

He took in their closeness, Clint's hands on Gretel's shoulders, and immediately snapped to seriousness.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Not Hansel." Edward rumbled.

"Ah. What?" He asked.

"Ben, Clint. Clint, Ben." Gretel waved introductions.

"Hi." Clint said.

"What?" Ben repeated.

"Amora." Gretel said simply.

"Oh." Bens' eyes widened. "OH. But, wait, where's Clint? Or, where's Hansel?"

Gretel looked at Clint.

Clint scratched the back of his neck and eyed Edward.

"I'm thinking either a different world or an alternate dimension. Pretty sure we don't have trolls, so I'm going to rule out the past. Distant future is still a maybe." He looked at Edward again. "Probably not, though. And since we're speaking the same language, I'm betting on alternate dimension rather than different world."

Clint took in their blank looks and sighed.

"Shit, I'm probably the worst person to explain this. Okay, it's…" He fumbled for the words. "There are lots and lots of worlds all existing at the same time, each one just a little different from the others. Like, what would have happened if you'd turned right instead of left, or decided to try and kiss that girl, or slept in instead of getting up on time – all the fallout that's different because of that choice. So all of those different decisions create different worlds. Or, alternate dimensions. This is the world where you went left. That is the world where you went right. Is… this making any sense at all?"

Gretel and Ben squinted at him.

Edward had a finger buried up his massive nose and seemed to be ignoring him.

Clint grimaced and Gretel turned.

"Edward!" She said, chastizing.

Edward dropped his hand like it was on fire and gave her a guilty look.

"Or," Clint pressed forward, "It could be like Thor."

Gretel's mouth twitched and Clint stopped, giving her a questioning look.

"Amora was looking for someone named Thor. After she threw us around and," She twiddled her fingers at Edward and Ben, "She said he wasn't here right before she left. Sounded pretty pissed about it."

Clint nodded. He'd expected it had been something along those lines.

"Right. So, Thor. Dude came from a different planet and still spoke English. And Amora bore the earmarkings of Asgard, so the realm-hopping is a definite maybe. Anyway, I'm betting on one of the two - alternate dimension or different planet." He huffed an incredulous laugh. What was up with his life, seriously? "In my world, I'm part of a team of superheroes and had a brother. In this world, I have diabetes and a sister."

"Diabetes?" Ben asked.

"The sugar sickness." Gretel answered. "How did you know my name?"

Clint really didn't want to tackle that one.

"Lucky guess." He said.

She gave him a narrow glance that called him a liar more clearly than words, but let it go.

She rose and went over to get the water.

"So," Clint quietly drawled, turning to Ben, "I seriously want to know – was there actually a candy house?"

**Chapter 4**

The clothes were weirdly similar, given how different everything else was.

Hansel dug his fingers into all of the pockets and found nothing. He strongly suspected they'd been emptied before being handed over. He recognized suspicion in the looks he kept getting.

Still. It was good to be wearing armor, at least, even if he didn't have his weapons.

Well. They wouldn't be HIS weapons, given that his weapons were back with the rest of his world; just weapons in general.

He felt a fresh pang of loss at that. He'd just gotten the triggering mechanism for the fold-out rifle fixed after Ben had gummed it up in the last fight. And the switchblade he'd been working on would have still been laid out – oh, he'd be pissed if anyone packed it up and dropped any of the little screws. Those were a bitch to replace.

The room fell silent when he finished speaking.

"So," Bruce fiddled with the stems of his glasses and addressed the assemblage, "What are we thinking? Different world or alternate dimension?"

"God, I love your brain," One of the men, sprawled back in his chair with his feet on the massive table, said. He had his beard trimmed in a way that made Hansel believe he had entirely too much time on his hands.

"What about you?" Hansel asked. "What happened when you fought Amora?"

Bruce drummed his fingers on the table.

"We were able to send out a repression field that interfered with her, ah, magic, not long after she knocked Barton out. She flew off in a huff and disappeared."

He gave Bruce a commiserating glace.

"She does that."

"Hansel," The dark-skinned man in charge, Fury (which… awesome name, Hansel thought) interrupted. Hansel wanted to ask him where he'd gotten his coat. "Any idea what triggered the change back between Ben and Edward? Can you describe the fight in more detail?"

Hansel took a long drink of the strong, dark coffee Natasha had given him.

"We were tracking a stolen kid, heading East. This bitch apparently hadn't gotten the memo that the blood moon festival had ended badly for them, because she wasn't even trying to hide herself. She was holed up in this scrap of forest that bordered on a swamp – all slithery creatures and insects and sharp rocks." He rolled his eyes. "Witches, right?" He took in the looks they were giving him and pressed forward.

"Pretty standard knock and drop, honestly, except that Edward forgot he wasn't in his troll body and charged her. She sent him flying into a tree and knocked him out. Ben ran over to check on his body and got smacked in the skull when she sent a rock his way. Gretel got her in the throat with an arrow, then, and I blasted her head off." He shrugged. "When Ben and Edward came to, they were themselves again."

"Should I attempt to administer a cognitive reboot, sir?" Natasha asked Fury.

"A what?" Hansel asked.

Fury nodded, and then Natasha sent his forehead slamming into the table.

"OW, what the fuck?!" He grabbed his head, rubbing the now-tender spot. He glared at Natasha as he got out of the chair and backed up against the wall. He HAD been happy to sit next to her.

"Clint?" She asked.

He shot her an incredulous look.

She frowned at him.

"I can't tell. Is that you, featherbrain?" The man with the beard asked. What had he said his name was? Tony?

"Featherbrain?" Hansel scowled.

"Yeah, still not sure."

"Agent, status?" Fury asked, rolling his eye at the banter.

"Are you asking if I'm Barton? I'm not. Thanks for the new bruise, though." He glowered at them all.

Natasha shrugged.

"It worked last time."

"Unbelievable." He turned to storm out.

The door was locked. He felt them tense up behind him and turned slowly.

Oh yeah, that tension was definitely all for him.

"Am I a prisoner?" He asked, quiet and angry.

"It's not advisable for you to go running off on your own. I'm keeping the information that you aren't yourself right now under tight lockdown." Fury told him.

Hansel turned and looked at him levelly, silently demanding an explanation.

"There was an incident a while ago where Barton's mind was magically altered. He attacked his own people. Our people."

"Didn't he shoot you?" Tony asked. He had a device in his hand that he had tapped at throughout the meeting, and he kept his attention there.

Fury continued.

"I'd rather it not come to any unnecessary attention that he's been magically compromised again."

Hansel stared at him.

"What happens to me if people know I've been... 'magically compromised?'"

Fury folded his hands on the table.

"You're not dumb, boy. Clint Barton is important to us. We're trying to keep him safe which just so happens to mean keeping you safe. So listen to us. Or we will wait this out with you drugged and tied to a bed."

Hansel stroked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and narrowed his eyes.

There were too many of them to fight.

"Listening to you it is." He said with mock cheer, dropping into an insouciant slouch and leaning his shoulders against the locked door.

"He'll be staying in the Tower?" Steve asked.

"Tower?" Hansel scoffed. No one had towers. "Am I a princess with very long hair?"

"Ho, buddy," Tony giggled, "You do NOT have the high ground here."

Everyone had a look about them like they were in on a joke. Hansel bristled.

There was a knock on the door behind him and he startled.

He turned it into a stride forward and tried to walk it off. Natasha snorted at him, not buying it for a second. God, she reminded him of Gretel.

Fury did something with the mechanism at his end of the table, and the light beside the door went from red to green. The door opened and one of the uniformed men strode in with a box.

The man gave Fury an apologetic look and handed it to Tony. The light beside the door went back to red when he closed it behind himself.

Fury pinched the bridge of his nose.

"No deliveries to the secret base. How many times, Stark?"

Tony ignored him and pulled wrappings from the box. He opened it, hiding whatever was inside from their curious eyes.

"Ha, beautiful." Tony said, surveying the contents.

He closed the lid and folded his hands over it demurly.

"What?" Tony said innocently. "I needed this."

Fury shook his head in resignation.

"Yes, he'll be staying at the Tower. From the sound of things, he might be useful in a fight if something comes up in the duration. Amora didn't get what she wanted. She's likely to pop back up, and the repression field didn't do much more than annoy her. We could use his experience."

Steve turned to Hansel.

"Would you be willing to work with the team?"

"To fight a witch?" Hansel flicked a glance at Natasha. "Are you on this team?"

She raised an eyebrow in challenge.

"I'll take that for a yes. Yeah, I'm in."

Fury's eye flicked between him and Natasha, and then he smirked.

"Natasha, please stick close to Hansel for the duration." Hansel perked up at that and, from the look he got, wasn't nearly as suave about it as he'd hoped. Fury continued. "From what I've seen, with a minimal debrief he should be able to pass for Barton. Get him down to a range so we can get a feel for his shooting abilities."

Hansel perked up even more at this and didn't bother trying to hide it. He missed his guns.

"Yes, sir." She rose out of her chair.

Tony nearly knocked his chair over in his hurry to get up.

"Are we going? Is it go time?"

He pulled a flimsy rectangular sack from the box. The bright lettering on the side said "wonder."

Tony pulled a slice of bread from the bag and crumbled it, walking backwards to the door, leaving a line of crumbs.

"The fuck?" Hansel squinted at him.

Natasha made a choked sound, and behind them Steve and Fury looked pained while Bruce was quietly laughing behind his hand.

"You know what?" Hansel said. "I don't even want to know."

**Chapter 5**

They were hunting a witch.

Because, yes, apparently, that was Clint's life now.

They were only half a day's walk out of town heading in the right direction, but had spent the last two days sleeping in caves while tracking said witch. They had stopped for the night. They weren't lighting a fire and were keeping quiet because witches, Clint was informed by a very serious Ben, were mostly nocturnal.

Clint wasn't sure what to make of Ben.

On the one hand, he spoke like an academic – all enthusiasm for the subject without an emotional connection to the words. And on the other hand, he cleaned his gun like he knew how to handle it.

Clint imagined Ben's mind in Edwards's body and was amused. Then thought of the other side of that – Edward's mind in Ben's body, and couldn't help but snort.

Edward and the Hulk would probably get along like a house on fire. He was growing on Clint.

The witch they were tracking had hidden herself somewhere in the rocky range and figuring out which cave precisely was hers was taking some time.

This one, he was informed, wasn't taking children – just mutilating the town's livestock.

Still. In a bad season in a place like this, an extra goat might make the difference between starving or not. The townspeople had lost eight animals before they'd hired the siblings.

"We'd been heading this way anyway," Ben told him. "But it's always nice when we get paid."

Gretel made an agreeing noise. She was sitting with her back against Edward's thigh and rubbing a cloth over her crossbow's wires.

"Did Hansel make that, too?" Clint asked, nodding to the weapon.

"He spent half a year getting the spin rotation perfect. He was so proud of it that he celebrated by drinking himself stupid. He was so sick the next day that he threw up directly in the witch's cauldron in the middle of the fight." Gretel tipped her head back in nostalgic amusement. "She got so angry that her horns started glowing." She smiled fondly and went back to cleaning her weapon.

Clint's eyebrows climbed to his hairline.

"Horns?"

Gretel gestured to her neck with the hand holding her cleaning rag.

"Spindly, curving things. I think they were poisoned, but we took her down before we had to find out."

"Oh!" Ben said, "Was this the Westborough hunt?"

Gretel nodded, and Ben looked delighted. "He did that hung over? I did not know that." He went back to cleaning his gun with renewed enthusiasm.

Ben, Clint decided, was a total fan boy. He wondered if this was what Phil had been like as a teenager.

He shied away from the thought. It was too painful.

Clint went back to his own weapons check to distract himself.

There weren't really two ways around it – Hansel's gun was a steam punk enthusiast's wet dream.

It was beautiful and intricate and solid. It looked good and felt good, but, Clint thought darkly, that really didn't mean much if the weapon wouldn't shoot straight.

The bitch of the thing, though, was that he was in a mostly flat, cave-filled desert. Test shots would echo like a mother and if they were closing in on a target, giving them that kind of warning would just be stupid.

It rankled. Clint hated going into the field with an untested firearm. He wasn't particularly pleased about going out without his bow, either, but given the circumstances he had to admit it could have been a lot worse.

"Do all witches have horns?" Clint asked.

"Not necessarily," Ben answered. "The corruption of malevolent witchcraft manifests in visible rot and malformation, often included augmentations such as horns, talons, fangs or a tail." He was clearly reciting from something and looked very self-satisfied at having been giving the opportunity. Definitely a fan boy.

"So this one we're hunting; do we know what she looks like?"

"The shepherd we talked didn't get a good look. He said she moved like a spider, so we might be dealing with extra limbs."

"Like the Rieden hunt." Ben put in, smiling.

"Okay." Clint decided to just accept it. "How do we kill it?"

Gretel inhaled, but Ben beat her to it.

"Decapitation, burning, or mortal wounds with blessed instruments."

Clint looked at his gun.

"Is this blessed?"

"Yes," Gretel sounded smug, but a moment later her expression went melancholy.

Clint decided not to ask.

"What's the plan of attack?" He said instead.

"In the morning, we'll start checking the Eastern ridge of caves. When we find the one we're looking for, we'll set up a perimeter with the blessed wires. Ben will find a place and wait with his rifle in case she escapes and manages to get through those. Then Edward will go in first. Witches like trolls, but it's been pretty hit-or-miss with which ones believe Edward will work for them and which ones recognize him for a trap. Either way, we come in then and then it's pretty much just staying out of each other's line of fire while we take her down."

Clint quirked an eyebrow.

"Sounds messy."

Gretel gave him an unimpressed once over but made no comment.

They tended to their weapons in quiet for a while.

The sun finished setting and the air started to chill a bit. Gretel sat pressed against Edward's leg; Ben did the same on the other side, already looking like he was asleep.

Clint had shrugged on the heavy leather coat and smirked, imagining the eyebrow Fury would give him if he saw him in it. Still, it was warm.

Something moved in the corner of Clint's eye, and he turned his head, surveying the stretch of desert from his perch at the mouth of the cave.

He waited.

The wind shifted the scrub, there were a couple of small animals moving around by a cluster of cacti. A skyborne owl that would be making one of those critter's lives past tense momentarily.

This had been further out, though. He let his eyes settle on a crevice perhaps three hundred meters away and stilled himself, waiting.

There it was.

A twitch of movement - a shift in the shadows that suggested a human-sized something.

It was too far out to see features, but once Clint was sure it was a solitary figure and agreed that, yes, it moved like a spider, he stood and walked outside, wanting to spare his companion's ears (it was common courtesy).

When he was sure which part of the shape was its head, Clint fired.

The figure jerked with impact and toppled.

"Boom," Clint murmured smugly. Looked like the pretty gun worked after all. He leaned against the rock wall and looked at his team in satisfaction.

"What the fuck?!" Gretel barked. She strode up in a huff and smacked the back of his head, hard.

"Ow!" Clint protested, ducking when she went to do it again.

Ben and Edward were both watching him with wide eyes.

"We are staying quiet! Fighting a witch at night is a bitch and a half."

"Okay, but-" Clint started, but she powered on, incandescently angry.

"We're going to have to double the watch because of that. Ben, I hope you weren't planning on sleeping." She gave the boy a look, daring him to argue. Ben raised his hands in defense and surrender. "What were you thinking?" She hissed at Clint, glaring.

"That it'd be-" Clint tried.

"I mean, I gathered that you haven't been fighting witches, but this was common sense."

Clint waited a beat, but she only stared at him expectantly.

"The witch is dead." He said.

Gretel blinked.

"Excuse me?" Ben asked.

Clint tapped two fingers against his temple.

Gretel looked past him to the mostly flat expanse of desert. They'd picked his particular place to stay the night precisely because it gave them great visibility to anything approaching.

Clint could tell she wasn't looking far enough out, and pointing without being asked.

She looked out, then back at him and frowned.

Ben and Edward had both come to look.

"There," Clint said. "You see where that dip in the rocks is, right before the formation that totally looks like…" Gretel gave him a look and he changed his intended word choice, "Boy parts?"

Ben and Gretel were looked at him incredulously.

"Edward," Gretel said, "Get the cart."

"You think he actually hit something? From here?" Ben's eyes were wide. Clint bristled a little at the lack of confidence – both that he'd made the shot and that what'd he'd hit had been the witch - but had to admit that these people didn't know him yet. He decided to take it as a compliment.

"Either he did or not. Either way, we should move."

There was a half-moon lighting the sand up enough that visibility wasn't really a problem as they walked.

After the first five quiet minutes, it was clear the quiet was a mix of sullen anger, and the humoring sort of silence of passengers who well knew the driver was lost.

Five minutes later still, Clint unshouldered his gun and mounted the little hillock at the bottom of which he expected to find the witch's corpse.

Yeesh, that was ugly. Clint swept his eyes over the body, noting the splatter of an exit wound on the side of her skull, and turned back to the others with a pleased smile.

"So, do you collect the body, or…? What's the procedure here?" He asked.

Gretel gave him a surprised look and came up to stand beside him. She looked at the body, then at Clint, then back over her shoulder towards the cave they'd come from, and back to Clint.

"Holy shit." She breathed.

Ben and Edward came to stand beside him and were both staring at the corpse dumbly.

"Good shot." Edward rumbled after a moment.

Ben had turned to stare at him. Clint half-suspected he'd broken his little fanboy brain.

"So, yeah." Ben said. "Yeah, that is, well. That is definitely a much easier way of doing that."

Chapter End Notes

Two notes - 1) I figure any shot Clint could make with an arrow, it would be fair to assume he could also make with Hansel's BFG. Hawkeye doesn't seem to abide much by physics. And 2) I think it's likely that most of Clint's crazy aim is from Clint's brain being trained to notice all the tiny changes that affect where a projectile will go, rather than muscle memory. Some of the shots he made in the Avengers can't have been ones he made often enough for it to be strictly muscle memory, I don't think. :)

**Chapter 6**

Hansel was told he worked for an organization called SHIELD.

"So, we're a sort of a policing force? I'm like a sheriff?" Hansel clarified when Natasha paused.

She tilted her head in not-quite-agreement.

"SHIELD works as a policing force, yes. I think Clint would probably hurt something laughing if I called him a Sheriff, though." Hansel frowned in annoyed confusion. "You're unofficial designation is 'assassin.'"

Hansel's eyes widened, but he fell silent as they walked past another pair of SHEILD employees heading in the opposite direction. One of the things Natasha had insisted on was that he was not to talk around anyone outside of the Avengers team.

Hansel noticed that the strangers gave the two of them a wider berth than strictly necessary.

Assassin.

Holy shit.

His stomach sank because he'd been blindly assuming he was one of the good guys. He'd imagined telling Gretel about the things he'd seen; been excited about telling her about this. He couldn't imagine telling her he was an assassin.

"Are we all assassins?" Hansel asked when they were out of earshot again. Natasha was leading him through a building that just seemed to keep going.

"You and I are. Think of the rest as," She wavered, "Soldiers."

Hansel huffed a laugh.

"I can't imagine Bruce as a soldier." He told her.

Natasha gave him a secretive smile but didn't elaborate.

Maybe Natasha didn't mean assassin the way he was thinking. After all, they were hunting a witch and there was nothing but good in that.

"What kind of people do we kill?" He settled on.

"Bad people," She assured him easily.

Hansel wasn't quite ready to take that in stride.

"What kind of bad people?"

"The last solo assignment Clint went on was to take out key personnel in a child smuggling ring." She gave him a look. "As I said; bad people."

Well.

He could live with that.

They came to a pair of doors and Natasha pressed a button on the wall beside them.

A moment later the doors opened and Hansel frowned at the small room that was revealed.

He followed Natasha in and the doors closed.

He was about to ask a question when the room moved.

He slapped a hand to the wall and looked at Natasha, wide-eyed.

"This is an elevator. It's on a series of cables that move it between floors." She pointed at the ceiling.  
Hansel eyed the panel there curiously, wanting to pry it off and take a look at the mechanism, but the doors opened and Natasha led him out.

The elevator opened on a smallish room with a wired window off to one side, a room beyond that with a uniformed woman at a desk.

"Agent Barton, Agent Romanov." The woman greeted politely.

Natasha inclined her head.

"Hi." Hansel said.

Natasha's toe nudged his boot - not painfully, but enough that Hansel closed his mouth on any further comment.

"The usual?" The woman asked, flicking her gaze between the both of them.

"Please."

"Okay, c'mon through. I'll get it for you."

There was a box with numbered buttons beside the heavy door leading onward. Natasha pressed a string of buttons and pressed her thumb against a black pad for a moment. The light went green.

Hansel felt like he was starting to get the hang of the doors, at least.

That door opened onto a short corridor before another heavy door. Hansel could hear the faint sounds of gunfire beyond it.

The woman at the desk was loading two baskets with small boxes and rolls of paper and, Hansel was pleased to see, a pair of pistols.

She passed Natasha two pairs of what turned out to be, once he'd put his on following Natasha's example, something that muffled sounds almost completely.

The woman at the desk slid a narrow, handled box onto the counter and then passed him a quiver full of arrows.

She mouthed something at him. Hansel slid an ear free of the muffler.

"What?" He asked.

"I said, these are just the standards. Did you want R&D to send down the newest prototypes?"

Hansel flicked a glance to Natasha.

"No... thank you," He said. Natasha gave him a pleased look, turning to hide it.

"We already have what we're testing." Natasha said, putting a hand over her pocket meaningfully.

The woman looked curious, but didn't ask.

The light beside the door went green and, grabbing his own basket and the box, Hansel followed Natasha in.

The room beyond was immense.

There were a few other people, mostly wearing the SHIELD uniform but there was also a man in a suit. They were shooting at targets positioned at various lengths away, each in their own rows. They were shooting from little cubicles that offered some measure of privacy from the rest of the room.

One of the men flipped a switch on the cubicle's wall and the target came flying forward. Hansel's eyes followed it up along the track as they walked past. The mechanism seemed simple enough.

Natasha took them down to the far end.

Natasha set one of the pistols and boxes on the counter and gestured for him to have at it, then wandered back the way they'd come. Hansel frowned after her, then shrugged and opened the box.

Bullets.

Hansel eyed the gun. It was different than he was used to but he figured out how to load it quickly enough.

He snapped the pieces back in place and set it down on the counter.

He unrolled one of the paper targets from the basket and pinned it up. He flicked the switch and watched in pleasure as it flew down the track.

He glanced around for Natasha.

He didn't know where she'd wandered off to but he understood what he was doing here.

When the target was far enough back, he released the switch, leveled the pistol at the target and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He frowned and tilted the gun. There was a little switch on one side. He turned it forward and raised the gun again.

His first shot hit the edge of the paper.

Hansel narrowed his eyes and steadied his grip. His next few shots hit inside the circular target but he didn't think all of them were bull's-eyes. He fired until the gun clicked empty, and, when he went to reel the target back in, he realized that in the absence of his own firing the room was quiet.

He took his earphones off and stepped back, looking towards the cubicles that had been occupied.

Natasha was leaning against the wall behind him and raised her eyebrow when he looked to her.

"Where did they go?" He asked when she slid aside her own muffler.

"I told them we were testing a prototype. Top secret. Clint Barton is, putting it very mildly, a known marksman. It would send up alarms if they saw him shooting like this." She waved at his target.

Hansel looked at the paper.

His first shot put an embarrassing hole on the edge of the paper, but he didn't think the others were so bad. A few bull's-eyes, a few more clustered just outside that center circle, two shots a in the ring beyond it.

He gave her a questioning look.

"Let's see how you do with that," She said, nodding to the box.

Hansel flicked open the latches and stared at the curving, folded thing inside. After a moment – and taking the arrows for a clue - he picked it up by the grip in the middle and gave it a sharp outward twitch.

The bow snapped into place.

Natasha gave him an impressed look.

"You've seen something like this before?" She asked.

Hansel shook his head.

"Not exactly. You know, I can't help but think a bow and arrow feel a little… old fashioned, I guess, in this place." He gestured at the electric lights, the targeting track.

Natasha smirked.

"You would not be the first to say so. Barton has been making people eat those words for most of his life, now."

Hansel held up his free hand defensively.

"I've nothing against them. My sis uses a crossbow. It's been a while since I used one of these, though. Bear with me."

Natasha attached a thicker board to the track and pinned another piece of target paper to it.

Hansel slung the quiver on and, with only a little fumbling, drew an arrow out.

The callouses on his fingers made more sense now; they fitted to the bowstring perfectly.

Holding the bow felt natural. This body had obviously spent a lot of time doing it because nocking the arrow and drawing it back felt as easy as breathing.

Natasha released the switch when she felt the target was far enough back – farther than Hansel would have liked, honestly, but he didn't want to protest. Natasha had very judgmental eyebrows.

He squared himself -

"You might want to-" Natasha started

- and released the arrow.

"Owfuck!" He hissed and rubbed his stung wrist.

"-put the bracer on." Natasha finished dryly.

She handed him the black, strappy thing and Hansel set the bow on the counter and slid it on.

The skin of his wrist wasn't even sore; the snap of the string had mostly just surprised him. Hansel had a strong suspicion that the skin of this body's wrist was probably used to that kind of abuse.

He flexed his fingers against the grip and drew another arrow out, more smoothly this time.

He looked down at the target.

"Where did the last arrow go?" He asked.

Natasha pointed off to the corner of the lane.

"Oh." Hansel could feel his ears heating.

His sister pointed out to him (often, at length) that he babbled like an idiot when he was embarrassed. He resolved to keep quiet.

"I haven't, well I mean it's been something like ten years, I just, I'll." He clicked his mouth shut.

Natasha looked amused.

He took a breath, steadied himself and loosed the arrow.

It went over the target.

He didn't look at Natasha, just drew another and tried again.

And again.

And again.

"This is harder than it looks, huh?" The blush had crept down his neck. He couldn't look at Natasha.

"This is one of the most surreal things I've ever seen." She said with something like quiet awe in her voice.

Hansel sighed and set the bow down.

He put the arrow he'd drawn back in the quiver and shouldered it off.

Natasha inclined her head.

"No, you're not going to be able to pass for him with a bow." She agreed.

"I'm alright with a gun, though." He said.

She grimaced.

"I'm not alright with a gun?"

"Barton's codename is 'Hawkeye.'" She said. "His aim is closer to perfect than I'd believed humanly possible before meeting him. You might be able to scrape by with a gun, but people will notice that his aim is off. People will notice that he's not using his trademark weapon." She gestured to the bow.

She bit her lip and regarded him.

"If we're lucky, we won't get a call in until this is resolved. If we're unlucky, we'll claim illness. If we're very unlucky, we'll hide you."

"Wait – so I'm not going with you to fight Amora?"

Natasha shook her head firmly.

"I could –"

"No." She said flatly. "No. I'm not willing to risk him."

"I can handle myself in a fight!" He said hotly.

"I didn't say you couldn't. What I'm saying is that you can't pass as Barton in his element, no matter the face you're wearing."

She shrugged, but Hansel could see the tension beneath.

"It's a pretty face," He joked, trying not to be angry. Trying to get her to smile.

She did.

"Let's get back to the Tower. We can finish your debrief when we're behind Stark's security. Get your arrows." She jerked her chin down the lane.

Hansel hopped over the counter and went to retrieve them.

He ducked around the target board as Natasha recalled it and gathered the arrows that were scattered at the back of the room.

Natasha was stabbing the board with an arrow when he turned around.

He jogged up and she flicked a glance at him before stabbing the paper again.

The little holes, when he was close enough to see, suggested a smiling face.

Natasha loaded her basket up. Hansel did the same, and Natasha slipped the perforated paper in with his unused boxes of ammo.

"People talk." Was all she said.

Hansel flipped latches on the bow, releasing the tension, and folded it into the case. He wanted to take it with him and examine it at more length, but got the impression he was expected to give it back to the woman at the desk.

"That was fast," She smiled at them as they approached.

"R&D needs to do a little more work." Natasha wrinkled her nose as though commiserating.

The woman hummed and they moved on.

The elevator ride back up was just as interesting as the one down. Hansel looked at the ceiling panel again.

"How does it work?" He asked, gesturing at the buttons that lit up sequentially as they moved.

"The elevator?"

"The lights."

Natasha pursed her lips, contemplative. Hansel could see her considering and rejecting words.

"I'm not the best person to explain this. You know thunderstorms, lightening?" Hansel nodded. "Lightening is made of electricity. It's energy. Power. We've… found ways to create, store and use electricity. There are wires that run all the way to where that electricity is generated, and it travels along those wires back here." She touched the 'SB7' button as it lit up, "There are little wires inside. The electricity goes through those wires and makes light."

Hansel thought about the hand-cranked charger he and Gretel had built. He was pretty sure this was a similar concept.

Natasha waved a hand. "When we get back to the Tower, I'll introduce you to Wikipedia."

"Who's she?" Hansel asked.

Natasha hesitated.

"We're coming to our floor. I'll explain more later. For now, I need you to promise to stay quiet and calm. Do as I do. You will see some things that I think will surprise you, but keep it off your face. Do you understand?"

Hansel nodded and schooled his features.

The elevator doors slid open a moment later, when the 'B1' button was lit.

Beyond, there was another locked door that Natasha opened, and beyond that…

Hansel swept his eyes over the sleek machines, carefully keeping his curiosity from showing. He followed Natasha past rows of them. He noted the tires, the windows, the seats inside. Transportation, he thought.

Natasha paused before one and subtly gestured for him to go around to the other side.

She opened the door and climbed in. He only fumbled with the door handle for a moment before joining her.

In front of them, one of the machines rolled past, lights beaming out from the front. Hansel followed it with lidded eyes, even though the fascination was eating at him.

Natasha put a hand over her shoulder and pulled down a strap. The metal end of it slid into place by her hip with a 'click.' He did the same.

She flicked down a flap on the top of the machine, and a pair of keys tumbled out. Natasha slid one of them into a lock below the protruding wheel, and turned it.

The machine rumbled. Hansel struggled to keep his bored look in place. There was a spasm of sound – music? - that cut off abruptly when Natasha punched a button on the complicated panel in front of them. There were lit numbers – 10:31. As he watched, it changed to 10:32. The number didn't change again. The time, maybe?

Natasha shifted one of the levers and then they were in motion.

Hansel braced an elbow against his door and stared out of the front window.

The numbers slowly changed from 10:32 to 33, 34. The machine took them along the black road and, after going through a gate, outside.

"What is-?"

"Not yet, Clint." Natasha said gently. Hansel closed his mouth. Not safe yet, then, apparently. Hansel didn't know who she thought could hear them, here, alone, in this machine, but he trusted her.

The city was amazing.

It was still morning. People were walking in the paths along the road in frankly startling clothing, walking into bright and colorful shops. Hansel saw people gathered around tables in a small fenced area, eating something that looked breaded and meaty.

His stomach rumbled.

"We'll eat when we get to the Tower." Natasha soothed. He shot her a grateful look and went back to looking outside.

There were big, rectangular boxes hanging from a wire above the road. After a while, he figured out that the pattern was like the doors – green for movement, red for no movement. Yellow seemed to indicate red was coming up. That made sense. There were so many machines about it would be chaos without a system to control them.

The variety delighted him. Hulking metal structures on dozens of wheels and slim, two-wheeled machines that the rider straddled like a horse. When they stopped at a red light, they were next to a blonde girl in a bright purple one with a rounded top. There was a little yellow dog trying valiantly to stick its nose out of the slightly opened window. Hansel couldn't help but smile.

Everything here seemed larger. That little yellow dog looked ridiculous.

The blonde woman saw him smiling and smiled back. Hansel flicked a quick glance to Natasha and then back, and the woman burst into giggles, silenced by the glass between them.

Hansel felt his ears heating again.

The light turned green and they moved on.

The journey lasted maybe twenty minutes. Hansel had to bite the inside of his lip more than once to keep his questions in check as they drove past beautiful creations that everyone seemed to be ignoring.

Natasha guided the machine into another underground structure and slid it smoothly to a stop in another long row of them.

They got out and walked over to another elevator.

"That was a car." Natasha said once they were inside the cabin and the elevator was in motion. "It's a machine that runs on a combination of a battery that produces electricity and a tank of fuel that uses controlled combustion for energy."

"Combustion?" Hansel asked, because it was apparently okay to speak again. "Like explosions?"

Natasha nodded.

Hansel thought about it.

"That is so much better than a horse."

Natasha coughed a laugh.

Unlike the elevator at SHIELD, Hansel could barely feel this one moving. There was a screen above the door displaying numbers. There was an almost imperceptible slow to a stop when the number hit '63.'

The doors opened and Hansel followed Natasha into the room beyond.

It dripped with wealth.

"Agent Romanov, Agent Barton. Welcome back." Hansel glanced around for the voice and didn't see it. He grouped it in his mind next to the music in the car.

Tony's head perked up from the other side of the couch.

"Is it Agent Barton?" He asked.

Natasha shook her head slightly.

Hansel walked forward towards the massive windows lining the wall. The sky was ridiculously blue.

He stood in front the glass and looked down.

The '63' from the elevator suddenly clicked in his head.

Vertigo hit him like a backhand from Edward. He stumbled back, tripped over the leg of a table and landed squarely on his ass.

Sweat pricked at his hairline.

Natasha was in front of him abruptly, cupping his face in her hands.

"Hansel?"

"We are," He swallowed. "Very high up." He finished stupidly.

Tony started laughing.

Hansel vowed to stab him when he found his feet again.

"Shit," He muttered, leaning away from Natasha to swipe a hand over his eyes. This was ridiculous. He'd been in high places before – cliff tops and broom rides.

Never this high, though. It had never been such a steep, unnatural slice of a drop.  
Just thinking about it made him feel dizzy again.

"Jarvis, close the blinds please."

"Of course, Agent Romanov." The disembodied voice from before replied.

The light in the room dimmed, and Hansel took his hand away. The windows were covered.

The lights overhead brightened to compensate.

The sound of something pouring made him turn his head. Tony came out form around the long, stone and metal counter and handed him a glass of something tan that smelled strongly alcoholic.

He took it gratefully and downed it.

Maybe he wouldn't stab Tony after all.

The man gave him a pleased, impressed look at how quickly he finished the glass. It had been fucking wonderful liquor, and exactly what he'd needed.

He took Natasha's offered hand and rose, coming around to sit on the couch.

"Not a fan of heights, huh?" Tony asked, the edge of smart-ass tempered by something kinder.

Hansel glowered, but when Tony wiggled his fingers for the glass, Hansel handed it over easily enough.

Tony poured another few fingers into his glass. He held up the decanter with a questioning look at Natasha, but she waved him away and sat down next to Hansel. Tony pulled out a cup for himself and, handing the refilled glass over, settled on the couch across from him.

"Rogers and Banner?" Natasha asked, crossing her legs and tapping on another one of the small devices Tony had played with at the meeting.

"Killing punching bags and doing science, respectively," Tony answered, taking a long sip. "So, Hansel," He started.

"Don't." Natasha interrupted, and glanced up. "Do you have a spare tablet we could borrow? Also, order lunch. And get the others up here; we have things to discuss."

"Sir, yes sir." Tony said in an amused, humoring tone. "Jarvis?"

"Might I recommend Thai, sir?"

"Sounds wonderful. I want lemon cake."

"Of course, sir." The voice sighed. "Doctor Banner and Captain Rogers have been notified. I believe the Captain intends to have a shower. ETA for both the Captain and the meal - approximately twenty minutes."

"You're my very favorite AI."

"What's an AI?" Hansel asked Natasha.

"Artificial intelligence. Jarvis is a computer."

Tony sniffed.

"Don't listen to her, babe; you are so much more than that."

"Thank you, sir." The voice was dry.

Hansel frowned.

"What's a computer?"

"You know, Rogers might actually be the best person to walk him through this." Tony said, taking another mouthful of his drink.

Natasha gave him a considering look.

"That was actually a helpful suggestion, Stark." She said, sounding surprised.

Tony shrugged and sprawled back against the cushions.

Hansel wanted to ask more but something caught his eye.

He plucked the little tapered cylinder from the coffee table and examined it.

He pressed the protruding end and it clicked as it depressed, a little metal tip appearing on the other side. He ran his thumb over it and stared at the line of black ink it left behind.

He twisted it on either side of the seam and it unscrewed easily. He tipped the insides onto the table – a thin tube, half full of what he guessed was ink, and a spring. He looked inside, seeing the way the tube would catch against the spring. He reassembled it and only then realized Tony, Natasha, and now Bruce as well were all watching him.

"What?" He asked.

"You're adjusting to the technology around you surprisingly well." Bruce said.

Hansel put the pen back on the table and gave him a dubious look.

"This is hardly the most fantastic thing I've seen since I've been here."

Bruce shrugged in agreement.

"What does P-C-C-B mean?" Hansel said, turning to Natasha.

She blinked at him.

"What's the context?" She asked.

"This," He touched his hip over the tattoo and, at the blank look she gave him, pulled the waist down enough to show the mark. An arrow slightly crossed over a pen, the letters P C above, C B below.

Natasha reached over and took Hansel's drink. She finished it, stood, and walked away.

"Natasha?" He pulled his clothes back into place, knowing he'd upset her but not knowing why.

"Ah, I'd give her a minute," Tony said quietly. It was a surprisingly serious tone.

The man's eyes lingered on the place on his hip where the tattoo lay hidden.

Hansel had had nothing but questions since he'd woken up here.

This, though… he wished he hadn't asked.

Chapter End Notes

"Phil Coulson, Clint Barton," for anyone who wasn't sure. I clarify later, but it's not really a secret. :)

I couldn't not. I've loved the pairing since seeing "Thor."

Also - I borrowed the idea of Clint taking out personnel in a child smuggling ring from DentalFloss's story "Through the Glass," which, FYI, is amazing.

**Chapter 7**

"You know, you're taking this in stride fairly well. Most people are more rattled when they see a witch." Gretel observed.

Clint shrugged.

"I grew up in a circus. And the whole Avengers gig isn't burdened with an abundance of normal either." He tucked the witch's dangling fourth arm into the cart and went back to get her head. Gretel had insisted on decapitation and Clint knew better than to argue with an expert.

Gretel was patting down the witch like she was looking for a wallet. Clint lobbed the head into the front of the cart and was about to comment when Gretel withdrew a wand.

An actual freaking wand.

"Seriously?" He asked flatly, but he kept it under his breath.

The alarm on his wrist started buzzing again and he groaned in aggravation as he withdrew the syringe and injected himself in the thigh.

There had been an op that went bad in Kazakhstan where the dick-of-the-day had dosed him with a toxin. As often as he had to take treatments afterwards, he should have honestly been in bed with an IV. But, SHIELD had needed him mobile. It had been a miserable two weeks, and if the asshat that dosed him wound up with a few more arrows in him than strictly necessary for an assassination, no one at SHIELD was dumb enough to mention it.

This, though?

This was Hansel's life.

Just the idea of being permanently tethered to a drug like that made Clint's skin itch in sympathy. Hansel's thighs were a mess of little puncture wounds.

He dutifully twisted the reset on the alarm under Gretel's watchful eye.

He didn't twist it all the way, though, and he cut her off before she said anything.

"Having the alarm go off right before the weakness sets in is stupid. You might as well have a bell saying 'hi, enemies, now is the perfect time to attack me.' I'm giving myself a," He considered the device, "I'd say about a twenty minute window to get it done."

Gretel didn't look happy but she didn't protest. Clint took it for a win.

The wand was maybe a foot long, a twining bramble of twigs maybe a couple of inches in diameter, all told.

Clint wasn't sure what he was expecting but he was surprised when Gretel pocketed it.

Ben, who hadn't really stopped staring at Clint since he'd made the shot, said; "When we have more light, we'll take it apart."

"Why?" Clint asked.

"Stones." Edward rumbled.

"Sometimes witches use precious stones as a way to channel their power." Ben elaborated. He had a glazed sort of look about him that Clint wanted to believe was fatigue. The staring was starting to get to him.

"Let's head back to the cave." Gretel said, patting Edward on the arm and gesturing for him to pull the cart. She started back the way they'd come. "We can make a fire, now. In the morning, we'll track down her lair and see if there's anything worth salvaging."

Clint eyed the gross bundle of limbs and rags in the cart and really doubted it.

It must have shown on his face because Gretel gave him a knowing grin.

"The first witch we took down had a bottle of gold dust in her collection, tucked right between the lizard parts and gingerbread. Between that and the sapphire in her wand, it kept the two of us clothed and fed for a couple of years with enough left over to arm ourselves."

"Sounds... very profitable. Are a lot of people witch hunters?" Clint asked.

Edward made a displeased rumble and Gretel walked over to bump his hip companionably with her own.

"Not really," Gretel answered. "Profitable, yes, sometimes. Not so much with the 'safe,' though. Hansel and I have an immunity to spells that makes it slightly less hazardous, but it's still not something a lot of people choose to do."

Ben took a break from staring at Clint to smile at her.

He went back to staring at Clint.

"Immunity?" Clint prompted.

"Our mother was a," Gretel pursed her lips. "She was a white witch."

Gretel went quiet and sad and Clint let it drop. Easy enough to fill in the blank there.

Ben looked at Gretel and Clint could see him looking to change the subject. He was a good kid, even with all the gawking.

"Where did you learn to shoot like that?" Ben asked. Clint really wasn't surprised by the topic. "Because, that was just, that was amazing. I won the Augsburg Fair three times, and I absolutely cannot shoot like that, that was just, that was…" He broke off, smiling.

Clint shifted his shouldered weapon so it was a little bit more between them.

Ben trotted over to his other side. Considerate of him, Clint thought wryly.

"Hey," Ben perked up as a new light of thought struck him. "Are you – other you, I mean. Well, you, but Clint – are you a witch hun- no, you said you didn't have witches."

The boy frowned.

"What did you say you did?"

"Assassin." Clint said easily.

He didn't miss the tension that suddenly spiked in both Gretel and Ben. Edward didn't seem to care.

"You said 'super hero,' before. On a team of super heroes."

"I said I'm on their team. I'm not a super hero. They are." He told her.

"Right," Ben said. "Because you're an, you're an assassin." He gave Clint a terrified smile.

Clint gave him an unimpressed look, suddenly annoyed at the reaction.

"What exactly do you call what you do?" He asked, aiming the question more at Gretel even though he was looking at Ben.

Gretel tilted her head, considering the point.

Ben didn't look ready to let it go. He gave Clint a broken-hearted look.

"You kill people?"

"Sometimes. Mostly, lately, I seem to be killing either robots or aliens. If it makes you feel better, they were all very bad." He struggled not to roll his eyes.

No one seemed inclined to say anything after that. Clint was aware of them struggling with the idea of his profession but he had a low threshhold for hipocrisy and let the silence roll on.

He put an arm out to make to stop them from walking forward. A little ways ahead a snake slid out from the shadow of a rock and circled around behind a clump of cacti. He led them around to give the area a bit of a bearth walking past just to stay on the safe side.

"Your...job." Gretel said once they picked up their pace again. "Is that why you crossed paths with Amora? You were... ah..." Gretel trailed off and Clint had to give her some credit for trying.

"No, she wasn't a target initially. The team I'm on works to protect people. Amora popped into bitchy existance in a busy, populated area. We assembled to contain her and keep her from hurting anyone or, failing that, kill her." He could only hope the rest of his team had succeeded after he'd checked out. "Best case scenario is that they're holding her and can press her to fix this. Fingers crossed that she didn't just head back to Asgard like we've been fucking telling her to continue her Thor-hunt."

"Asgard?"

"Thor's home. It's a different world." Clint waved a hand at the stars.

Gretel raised her eyebrows, then frowned.

"If he's in a different world, how do you know him?"

"He came to Earth a few years ago. Caused a ruckus with his dick of a brother, and then left. Then came back a while after that and did it again when said dick of a brother returned. He-"

Clint cut himself off as something occurred to him. Something from Foster's report and SHIELD's surveillance.

He blinked. It probably wouldn't work. I mean, it had been tried before and nothing had ever come of it. But circumstances being what they were, maybe...

Well, what harm could there be in trying?

"What?" Gretel asked.

Clint tilted his head and glanced at the stars, considering. Could be he did have a way out of this.

"Heimdall," He said, loud and clear. "Heimdall, open the bifrost to me."

**Chapter 8**

In Natasha's absence, an awkward silence fell over the room.

Tony drank and watched him without really focusing on him. Bruce wandered into another room and came back with a metal cylinder. He manipulated the top - there was a snap and a fizzing noise, and then he started drinking the contents.

Hansel perked up curiously.

"Would you like one?" Bruce asked, noticing his attention.

Hansel flicked his eyes from the can to Bruce's eyes and smiled hopefully.

Bruce huffed a laugh, went back and returned with another that he passed to him before sitting down next to Tony.

The thing was covered in writing. Hansel eyed the seamed mouth, pried a fingernail the protruding metal '8' and tugged upwards.

A snap, a fizz. Hansel smiled.

He took a sip, and the sugar taste of it coated his mouth.

He set the drink down abruptly and fumbled at his thigh. God, he didn't have his alarm. How many hours had it been? He had to be overdue!

His syringe, where was his syringe?

"Hansel?"

"My bag, it's-" He met their concerned gazes and blinked, remembering.

"Oh." He said. "Uh… nevermind."

He stared at them. They stared at him.

Hansel moved to pick up the can and take another sip, smooth the situation out. He held it to his mouth and couldn't quite bring himself to drink, though. The sweetness was overwhelming and off-putting. It clung to his tongue unpleasantly.

"What was that?" Tony asked, eyebrows at his hairline.

Hansel tapped his fingers against his knee in agitation. He'd been keeping calm because everything he'd heard about his double suggested he'd be able to stand in for him while he was gone; would be able to take care of Gretel. He hadn't thought about this, though.

"Your Clint Barton, is he…" Hansel shook his head and changed his approach.

"I have the sugar sickness. I… don't know if you have that here." He frowned.

Bruce looked like he might be understanding him, so Hansel continued.

"I have to take an injection every few hours or I, well." He didn't want to say 'die.' Their friend was in his compromised body.

Tony looked a Bruce.

"Diabetes?" He asked.

Bruce nodded. "Sounds like."

"You know this, then? Barton, he'll-"

"I'm sure he'll be fine." Bruce smiled at him reassuringly.

Tony narrowed his eyes, teasing. "Did you eat a candy house as a child?"

Hansel glared. "It wasn't like I had a choice."

Tony gave him a startled look and inhaled to reply.

"Sir," Jarvis interrupted, "Your food is here."

Tony flicked a glance upward and rose from the couch.

There was a door off to the side of the elevator that Tony opened. From where Hansel was sitting, he could see a wide hallway and another set of elevators.

"My apologies, sir, they appear to still be in the lobby."

"You're getting senile in your old age, J."

"I'm sure that's the case, sir."

"Leave the door open, babe." Tony said as he returned to his couch. The door dutifully remained open.

Tony pulled his little black device from his pocket and flopped onto the seat, falling over slowly to put his head on Bruce's lap. The man looked down at him in amusement and didn't move him.

Bruce met Hansel's eyes and smiled, discretely flicking his eyes upwards and confirming Hansel's suspicion: Jarvis had distracted Tony from saying whatever he'd been about to say.

Hansel wanted to thank Jarvis but wasn't sure how. He made a mental note to ask Steve about computers as soon as possible.

As if thinking of the man had summoned him, there was a light thumping of footsteps on stairs, the sound of a door opening, and then Steve joined them in the den.

"You know, all of that stairs nonsense can't be good for your nonagenarian knees. I do have better ways of getting around." Tony commented, not looking up.

"You have lazier ways." He said, smiling good-naturedly. He regarded them. "Doctor Banner, I did not realize your many talents included being a pillow."

"I'm versatile like that." Bruce said dryly.

There was a soft chime as the second elevator's doors opened. A man, hands full of bulging white bags, slouched out, eyeing the décor with a somewhat overwhelmed air. He spotted them and headed in their direction.

"Order for Mr. Stark?"

Tony levered himself up. The man looked at Bruce and blanched slightly. Hansel caught the resigned look Bruce adopted.

"Set 'em on the counter." Tony gestured.

The man did and turned to Tony, withdrawing a long, narrow sheet of white paper. He moved to pass it to Tony, but Tony waved him away.

"I don't like being handed things. Bruce, honey-bear, would you?" Tony moved to the bags and started pulling out white boxes.

Bruce gave Tony a reproachful look but stood and held a hand out to take the paper. He was smiling reassuringly.

The man seemed to shrink a little as Bruce walked over, and Hansel straight-up didn't get it. What wasn't he seeing?

"Do you have a pen?" Bruce asked. Tony had opened one of the boxes and the smell was wonderful. Hansel's stomach growled. So did Steve's. They shared a look and Hansel answered his rueful smile with one of his own.

The delivery man had a panicked look about him suddenly.

"No?" He said, shrinking further.

"Here," Natasha appeared, startling him, and plucked the instrument off the table where Hansel had set it earlier. She passed it over.

The man wavered in visible relief.

"Ooooh, Takoh. Jarvis, you cheeky thing, I still need to fit in the suit after this." Tony said, opening another box.

"I'm sure the Mark IX can be rendered to make room for you paunch." Jarvis soothed.

"Paunch!" Tony yelped indignantly, and then pet his stomach in distressed appraisal.

"Theoretically," Natasha pursed her lips and regarded him, "How much weight can you put on and still get airborne?"

"So about those stairs you were mocking me for?" Steve added.

"Oh my god, I hate you all." Tony huffed. "You," He said imperiously to delivery man. "Tell me I'm pretty."

Bruce snorted a laugh.

"You don't have to do that." He assured him.

"I'll double his tip if he does." Tony returned.

The man looked completely bemused but, after a moment, dutifully turned to Tony and said; "Mr. Stark, you are very… pretty."

"Hah." Tony said triumphantly, ignoring the baffled tone the words had been delivered in.

Bruce handed the paper back, and the man was distracted enough by Tony's antics that whatever fear the unassuming doctor had inspired in him was subsumed by his confusion.

He took the paper, thanked them, and wandered back to the elevator.

"You know, you don't have to do that." Bruce chided once the separating door closed.

Tony's playful demeanor dropped and he gave Bruce a serious look.

"Have to, no. Want to," Tony made a facial gesture that implied a shrug.

"About before," Hansel said, abandoning understanding the dynamic there for the moment and turning to Natasha.

"Don't," She said gently. She brought a hand up to Hansel's hair and stroked it. He let her. "I'll explain later. For now, let's eat."

She regarded the mess of boxes Tony was laying out on the bar's counter.

"There is a room for exactly this," She said in exasperation and pointed, "Thirty feet that way. You couldn't wait?"

Tony had a piece of meat between his fingers. He popped it in his mouth and looked at Natasha innocently.

She muttered something in a language Hansel didn't recognize and picked up two of the boxes, heading in the direction she'd indicated. Hansel did the same and followed her.

The room had a large dining table and enough chairs for a dozen people. Hansel took it in and snorted, understanding Natasha's frustration.

Hansel looked at the abundance of food being spread out on the table as the others filter in in growing confusion.

"Who else is joining us?"

"Hansel, bottomless pit. Bottomless pit, Hansel." Tony said as though in introduction, waving a hand at Steve.

Steve blushed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I have a high metabolism." He shrugged.

Hansel didn't know what that meant, but nodded.

Bruce handed out plates and tipped half of the contents of a box onto his own, sitting down and pulling out a narrow white package.

They all seemed to be doing that, so Hansel did the same.

The package contained a pair of attached sticks. He watched Natasha, sitting next to him, snap them apart and rub the splintered ends together. She met his eye and slowly positioned the sticks between her fingers, showing him how to hold them. She clicked them together a few times, showing him how they moved, and then she scooped them into her plate of food and pulled up a mouthful.

It looked easy enough.

He fumbled with it the first few tries, but it wasn't any harder than working with the delicate tools he used for his weapons. He got the hang of it quickly.

Still, he couldn't help but say, "I should introduce you guys to forks."

"That would be cheating." Bruce mumbled, cheeks full of noodles.

"I don't think I'd mind cheating." Steve groused. Hansel watched him clumsily manage a mouthful.

"Shit, Rogers, brothers Grimm is shaming you." Tony said, beaming. "You're letting America down."

Steve threw a pea at him.

"Boys." Natasha scolded.

The food, Hansel decided, was delicious.

**Chapter 9**

The food was delicious.

Hansel wasn't entirely clear on what all of it was, but when he'd eaten everything on his plate he greedily went back in for seconds.

Tony had laid the little device down on the table to poke at and, for the first time, Hansel saw that the front of it glowed. More electric lights, he thought.

Tony swiped a thumb across the glowing surface and the image changed.

Hansel bit down on empty sticks, so absorbed in staring that he hadn't realized he'd dropped the piece of vegetable he'd been working on. He looked back down at his plate and found it again.

"You'll love tablets." Bruce observed.

Hansel smiled and nodded. When in doubt, smile and nod.

In the corner of his vision, the lights on Tony's device went red.

"Fuck." Tony muttered, just as Jarvis said; "Avengers, incoming message."

"Hansel, stay here." Natasha told him, a hand firmly on his shoulder as she stood. "Tony, put it on the screen in the den."

"Jarvis."

"Yes sir."

They all stood and hastily walked to the other room. Hansel touched Natasha's fingers on his shoulder as she withdrew her hand.

He was left alone at the table. He fiddled with the sticks in his hand, not really hungry anymore – or, at least, not nearly as hungry as he was curious.

He could hear their voices. They were only in the other room, after all.

Hansel wavered and decided that as long as he stayed out of sight, he'd be fine. He moved to the edge of the room and listened.

"-Sighted in Manhattan." Someone was saying. Hansel didn't recognize the voice. "She hasn't done anything yet, but…"

"Understood. We're on our way." That was Steve.

Natasha came back around the corner and looked not the least bit surprised to see him there.

"We have to leave." She said simply. "If you need anything, ask Jarvis. Do not leave this building."

She waited for his affirming nod. Hansel followed her into the other room. The others (save Tony, who was busy putting on shoes) were in the elevator, waiting for Natasha.

"J, what she said." Tony said as he stood.

"Of course, sir."

"Is it Amora?" Hansel asked.

Natasha nodded.

"If you kill her, I don't think that will switch us-"

"We're aiming for a capture." Natasha assured him. "We'll be back soon."

"Are you jinxing us? Seriously?" Tony bitched.

Natasha gave him an unimpressed look and joined them.

The elevator doors closed, and just like that, Hansel was alone.

He stared after them for a moment. He dithered, then turned back to the dining room.

The amount of food still uneaten would have feed the two of them, Ben and even Edward for a week. It seemed unforgivably wasteful to just leave it there.

"Jarvis?" He asked.

"Yes, sir?"

"What should I do with this?" He looked at the ceiling and waved a hand to indicate the laden table.

"I wouldn't worry about the messy plates, sir, but if you'd like to move the boxes to the refrigerator, I'm sure the others would appreciate it."

"Okay," Hansel nodded and started stacking the unopened or mostly untouched boxes. He grabbed them, and then paused.

"Refrigerator?" He asked.

"Yes, sir. Twenty steps in front of you. There is a drawing pinned to the front of the door of Captain Rogers dressed as a showgirl."

Hansel saw it and tilted his head at the picture, considering it. Doodle-Steve had very shapely legs, even though he couldn't imagine any practical use for that outfit. He opened the door, tugging against what felt like suction holding it shut.

Cold air wafted out and Hansel smiled in delight. The lit interior showed cartons and more cans of the sugary drink; fruit and packaged foods. He set the boxes on the counter and rearranged things enough to make room for them.

Finished, he opened the other door curiously. The air was even colder; there was even a film of frost on some of the packages. He swiped a finger through it.

"Huh." He said, pleased. "Jarvis, how does this work?"

"If you would like, sir, I could direct you to a computer and explain in more detail with visual aids."

"You're a computer, right? Are you directing me to you?"

"Not exactly, sir."

"You know, you don't have to keep calling me 'sir.'" Hansel said, walking back into the den. He eyed the pen he'd dismantled earlier.

"Hey, actually," He said before Jarvis could reply. "Is there a car I could take a closer look at?"

Car. Stupid sounding word, Hansel thought, but seeing the mechanical workings might help him forget that the others were out fighting a witch and had deliberatly, specifically left him behind.

"Yes, of course. If you would follow the lights, please, I believe sir is working on the Roadster again."

A light to Hansel's right started blinking. He walked over to it, and another light further down the hallway started doing the same.

Soon, Hansel was taking a flight of stairs down. At the bottom, there was a wall of glass and behind it...

Hansel trotted up to the door, excitement making him smile in a way Gretel assured him made him look like a mouth-breather.

The door opened easily when he tried it, even though there was a number-keyed lock beside it. He suspected Jarvis's hand at work.

Would it be hand, though? He thought not. He was pretty sure electricity was involved, given the things Jarvis had done.

The insides of the car were spread out around a promising scatter of tools. He surveyed the beautiful tangle of machinery, ran his fingers along a thick tube, tracing it from one connection to another. He eyed the casing it fed into and then eyed the tools, hunting for the one he'd need to get a better look at the insides.

"Might I advise against actually dismanteling anything?" Jarvis said. Hansel thought there was some wariness in his tone.

"It's okay; I promise I won't hurt anything."

One of the machines extended towards him. Hansel jerked back in surprise and threw the tool at it.

It made a distressed little whine.

"Please don't do that." Jarvis said.

"Sorry! Shit, Jarvis, I didn't realize that was you. You startled me."

"Technically, Dum-E is a seperate AI."

"Okay." Hansel thought. Smile and nod. He wasn't quite managing the smile, but the nodding was easy.

The machine lowered the extension.

"I've asked Dum-E to go into stand-by." Jarvis said when, after a moment, neither it nor Hansel moved.

"What does that mean?" Hansel cast his eyes towards the ceiling again. He wished he knew where to look when talking to Jarvis.

"I suppose, in comparable terms, I asked him to go to sleep."

Hansel looked at the still machine.

He walked around the car and stood in front of it, reaching out a tentitive hand and tracing the letters on the side of one long, round panel. Dum-E.

He let his fingers walk over the joints, from the protruding ends all the way down to its base and wheels.

He looked around for the tool that he'd flung and something else caught his eye.

It was a gauntlet, laid out on a table in what Hansel recognized as precision tools. It gleamed, blood red, in the lower light over that section of the room.

He walked over to it and carefully touched it.

It was solid metal, but it shifted when he turned it, fingers curling smoothly and naturally.

"Sir," Jarvis started, agitation clear.

"No, it's okay; I just want to look." Hansel soothed.

There was a chair at the table that he pulled around and sat in. He gently lifted the gauntlet up, quietly awed at how smoothly the metal moved.

There was a warped, circular glass that he pulled over, using its distortion to get a better look at the welding seams.

The edges of the glass lit up, making the viewing that much easier.

Hansel manipulated each of the fingers in turn, mind geared towards replication. The intricacy of the thing was amazing. It would take months to forge so many precise pieces.

There was a cupped lip over the back of the hand. Shifting it backwards revealed holes. Holding it carefully under the glass, he looked into the hollow space inside. Hansel wasn't sure what to make of that.

He traced the places that cupped piece met the rest of the gauntlet.

"This is beautiful," He told Jarvis, needing to express it. "The way it moves is so... Is it Natasha's?" He could picture her slim hand inside it, backhanding some smug dick stupid enough to think her weak because she was female.

He wondered if people called Natasha a bitch as often as they used the term for Gretel.

"That belongs to Master Stark, actually."

"Tony?" Hansel asked, verifying.

Jarvis hummed an agreement.

Hansel set the gauntlet down with just as much care as he'd picked it up. Craftsmanship like that deserved respect.

He stooped and picked up the tool he'd thrown earlier, eyeing Dum-E warily in case he woke up, and headed back to the car.

Hansel looked up a few hours later at the sound of the door opening.

Tony paused in the doorway and blinked at him.

"Jarvis? Is there a reason a pre-lightbulb fairy tale escapee is destroying my pinnacle of automotive engineering?"

"Sir, I have been carefully observing and can assure you this was purely exploratory."

Hansel swiped at his cheek self-consciously and was pretty sure it only made the smear of oil worse.

Natasha appeared in the doorway behind Tony and Hansel wiped at his cheek again. He was sweaty - some of those pieces had been heavy - and stained. Natasha smiled at him so he figured he couldn't look that bad.

Tony was wearing the same suit Hansel had seen him in earlier but Natasha had changed into a form-fitting black leather getup. It looked like something Gretel might wear.

"'Exploratory,' he says. You," Tony pointed a finger at him, "Up. Out."

It wasn't unfriendly, for all that the words were a bit short. Hansel rose from where he was crouched examining the wheels and moved to the door.

"Amora?" He asked Natasha as Tony was already past him and examining what Hansel had done. Hansel understood the posessive behavior and felt a little guilty. If anyone but him handled his guns, he tended to get a bit... alpha dog.

Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Asked about Thor; laughed at us when we asked her to switch you back; vanished in a huff."

Hansel took it in and nodded. He'd known she'd refused to fix things, obviously, but he was still glad to hear no one had been hurt.

"Come," She said, touching his oil-smudged cheek. "I'll show you the shower."

Hansel wrinkled his nose in resignation and let himself be led.

They took the elevator up three floors. Natasha closed her fingers lightly around his wrist and led him through the opulent rooms to a bathroom. Jarvis had walked him through how the toilet and sink worked about an hour ago. He was a big fan.

There was a large, glass-walled cubicle against the wall.

Natasha bent and unzipped her boots, kicking them aside. She undid her belt and let it drop; did the same for the bracers on her wrists and peeled off her gloves.

Hansel stared and figeted, not sure if this was customary or if this was like Mina and the healing spring.

Natasha grabbed him by his belt and pulled him forward, pressing her mouth to his with something close to violence.

Hoooookay, he thought, feeling his eyebrows climb. Probably not customary, then.

"Undress," She ordered when she released him. She unzipped her top.

Hansel turned his back, feeling a blush heat the tips of his ears.

He took off his clothes slowly, not exactly stalling but... not really hurrying either.

After a moment there was a metallic noise, then the sound of water hitting a flat surface.

Hansel looked.

The glass door was open and Natasha stood naked in the shower's spray. She met his eyes in challenge, tipping her head and wetting her hair.

His eyes dropped to the way water slid over her breasts, down her stomach, lower.

He swallowed audibly.

He dropped his pants and underwear and stepped out of them, naked. His cock was hard and swollen and obvious, the strange lack of foreskin making him feel even more exposed. He held a hand in front of himself, self-conscious under Natasha's steady gaze.

She stepped towards him and gripped his wrist in firm fingers, drawing him into the shower, drawing his hand away from himself.

The water was warm, he noticed, pleased. He took a breath to comment but Natasha crowded him against the wall and closed her mouth over his again.

Natasha kissed almost angrily, sucking his tongue and biting his lips. Hansel groaned and wrapped his hands around her waist, pressing his erection to her slippery thigh.

This was weird, he thought. Too abrupt. He should slow them down, clarify things.

He moved to back up and Natasha slid a hand down and wrapped her fingers around his prick. She stroked roughly, grip tight. He made an embarrassingly high-pitched, choked sound.

Natasha moved them into the corner, letting the spray of the shower hit their shoulders.

She released his mouth and kissed his jaw, his throat, his chest. Hansel tried to summon words as she kissed a trail down his stomach.

Whatever he intended to say died when she closed her lips around the head of his dick.

He gasped and fumbled a hand against the glass wall.

Don't pull her hair, he thought fiercly. Don't pull her hair, don't pull her hair.

His hand settled in the damp red tangle of her hair gently, fingers twitching as she pressed foward, swallowing until her lips circled the base of his cock.

"Oh god," He moaned, harsh and loud, "Natasha, I-"

Her mouth withdrew.

"Don't speak," She said, hand coming up to grip him firmly. Hansel's hips twitched helplessly. "Don't speak." She repeated, voice low and intense.

Hansel met her eyes and, finally understanding, nodded.

Natasha closed her mouth around him again, tongue rolling against the head in a way that made his knees weak.

Natasha set a fast pace. He brought his hand away from the wall and touched her stretched lips, her cheeks. He felt himself inside her mouth through that thin wall of flesh.

Natasha slid her hands up to grasp his ass, hard, pulling him in. She swallowed sharply and that was it - he was done.

He made a noise to try and warn her, but her arms around his hips were firm, holding him there. He spilled into her mouth with a moan so loud it echoed.

Natasha kept her eyes on Clint's tattoo the entire time.

**Chapter 10**

"Heimdall, open the bifrost to me."

Clint looked at the stars. He wished he'd studied astronomy more, or at least knew any constellation beyond Orion. He didn't see Orion but had a vague memory that there were times in the year he wasn't supposed to be able to. He couldn't tell if these were the same stars he'd see on Earth or not. Maybe it looked like there were more of them? But Clint knew the clean, open air of the desert could account for that.

"Heimdall, open the bifrost…please?" He tried. Couldn't hurt.

"Heimdall?" Gretal asked. Clint ignored her for the moment.

"Heimdall, this is Clint Barton. I allied with Thor in the battle against Loki's army in New Y- er, ah… Midgard. Amora switched my mind with," He gestured at his body, "This guy who happens to look like me. I don't know where I am. I need to get back to my team. I have a duty to protect my… realm, and I need help. Please, Heimdall, open the bifrost."

The desert was silent.

"Please with a cherry on top?" Clint tried.

"Who's Heimdall?" Gretel repeated.

Clint gave up. He turned and started walking back to the cave.

"Heimdall," He explained, not looking at them, "Is an Asgardian whom, if Thor isn't full of shit, watches everything. He's supposed to be able to see across the universe, but," Clint shrugged angrily.

He had no idea how to fix this. The spasm of hope that had opened in his chest when he remembered the bifrost left a painful hollow when it died.

Gretel and Ben followed quietly, Edward trailing after with the cart full of dead witch.

"If Heimdall is-" Ben started.

"Don't." Clint cut him off, quiet but firm. He really didn't want to talk about it right now.

They walked back to the cave in near silence, broken only by the sound of the feet on the sand and the creak of the heavy cart.

Clint helped them build the fire, making himself project a calm façade because he knew from experience there were few things worse than being in a small space with someone acting like a dick and they hadn't done anything to deserve his mood. They relaxed slowly, although no one quite felt comfortable enough to ask him more questions.

He was glad of it.

When the fire was going he settled against the cave wall, further inside the cave than where he'd been perched before. He leaned his head back against the rock and shivered a bit as the heat from the fire made its way to his side.

He tapped his head against the rock wall, frustrated and angry and wishing he had something else to shoot. He hated this.

Was this what Rogers felt like? He wondered suddenly. Displaced from the world he knew and expected to just take it in stride?

Tap. Tap.

Goddamn magic.

Tap.

This wasn't as bad as what Loki had done. Not nearly. But he'd still had magic take his mind and make him less than what he was. What meaning did a SHIELD specialist have in this lowtech wasteland with witches and trolls?

Tap.

A great shot? Was he back to that being all that he was? The years before SHIELD had given him a meaning had not been pleasant.

Tap.

He thought about Natasha. He was supposed to be there for her. Have her back, the way that she had his. He thought about every op they'd worked together. The quiet moments between explosions. The aftermath of the battle of New York. She'd been the one to tell him Coulson had died; been the one to comfort him when the pain of that loss was too much to hide.

She didn't know about the two of them beyond that they'd been close. Clint was sure of that. And it was hardly the only close asset/handler relationship in SHIELD.

But she'd been there for him, keeping him safe in his grief. Talking to him and sharing her own.

Tap.

He couldn't think about it. He turned his thoughts instead (tap) to Natasha bringing him back from Loki. The kick and punch to the head (tap) that had shaken that poisonous grip of magic loose. The way she'd (tap) sat with him afterwards when his mind was a maelstrom (tap) of blue-tinged, remembered violence.

Clint threw his head back against the rock, hard enough that lights burst in his vision.

"Stop it!" Gretel was there, hands clutching the sides of his head. He shuddered away from her touch but she didn't let go, following him back until his head was against the rock. She released one hand, the other still wrapped firmly along his jaw, and raked her fingers through his hair.

They came away red.

It was a small smear. He hadn't done much damage.

And it hadn't worked.

"What are you doing?" Gretel asked, voice tight.

Clint let his eyes drift away from her and back outside. He watched an owl swoop, watched it rise with something small and struggling in its claws.

He shuddered and looked at Ben and Edward, who were watching him with wide eyes glittering in the reflected light of the fire.

Gretel shook him.

"What are you doing?" She demanded.

There was a shuffle of some desert animal moving over the sand, just audible over the crackle of the fire.

He met Gretel's eyes and didn't answer. He didn't know what to say, how to explain his howling need to be back in control of himself, in control of his own body.

She sank into a crouch in front of him, not moving her hand from his face.

"I know," She said quietly, "That this can't be easy for you." Clint's lip curled, squirmingly uncomfortable with her pity. She shook him again, and her eyes hardened. "But if you hurt my brother again, I will make you regret it."

Clint met her gaze levelly.

After a moment, slowly, he nodded.

The sound of the desert animal shuffling on along the sand grew louder and Clint jerked up suddenly, eyes locking on the mouth of the cave.

That wasn't an animal – those were footsteps. His hand flew to his gun.

The figure came into sight, tall and broad and so known Clint felt weak with the flood of relief.

It was Thor.

**Chapter 11**

Hansel stayed quiet and accommodating when Natasha rose. She kissed his shoulder, just over a scar, and slid her fingers down his arm until she had his hand under hers. She guided his fingers to her sex and held him there while she rocked against him, around him. It didn't take long for her to tighten in climax, nails of her free hand digging hard into his shoulder until she was done.

The rest of the shower was less awkward than it could have been.

She washed his hair tenderly, gently; massaging fingertips into his scalp in a way that made his eyes droop, and gave him a humoring smile when he moved to do the same for her.

They soaped and washed and it was weirdly easy.

He knew Natasha had used him to be with her Clint Barton, and she knew he knew. But this, now, he felt was entirely for him. It took the sting out of being used.

She shut the water off and drew him out of the shower. Standing naked, she rubbed a ridiculously soft towel against his skin and over his hair.

She dried herself off brusquely and led him into the bedroom. Her bedroom, he thought. There was something feminine and slightly dangerous about the angles of the furniture, the colors of the walls, the carpet. It suited her.

She pulled the covers back and they laid down, naked and still slightly damp. Sex always made him tired so he didn't even object to being in bed in the middle of the afternoon.

Or, well, he mentally corrected – sex made Clint Barton tired.

Natasha settled beside him and stroked a hand over his chest, fingers lingering around a scar bisecting his left nipple.

"Tell me about your scars," She asked softly, stilling her hand over an unmarked patch of stomach.

Hansel looked down at his familiar unfamiliar body and grasped her hand, lifting his arm a little and tracing her fingers on the soft place beneath.

"Here," He said just as quietly, "A witch impaled me with her wand. It barely left a mark, but it bled like it wasn't ever planning to stop."

He brought her hand to his side.

"A witch backhanded me into a tree. It had been a pair of them holed up together and I got taken by surprise by the second one. It took Gretel over an hour to get all the splinters out. She broke her foot on that job, too." He smiled ruefully. God, that had been a messy fight.

He brought her hand to his hair, tracing his scalp above his ear. Clint had a scar there as well, but Hansel directed Natasha's fingers to the smooth skin above it.

"I was holding a line grappled to a broom. I got dragged right into the sharpest rock she could find." He'd really enjoyed beheading that one.

Natasha exhaled, her breath warm against his shoulder. She pulled her fingers from his and stroked his face.

"Have you ever considered not fighting witches? It seems to get you beaten up a lot." She observed dryly.

Hansel turned his cheek into her hand.

"It needs to be done. We can't sit by and let anything like what happened to us happen to other children."

Natasha's thumb ran over his lips, and then she slid her hand down to wrap around his waist.

She stroked up over his side and down his hip, slow and rhythmic.

Her fingers stilled on the tattoo, drawing him back from the edge of sleep.

She met his eyes.

"This is the name of someone he loved," She said, fingertip covering the letters. Hansel waited patiently for her to go on.

"In our line of work, love is a weakness. A thing for children and fools and a quick path to being compromised and killed." Her soft tone was a jarring contrast to her words.

"I do not love," She paused and added, "I've forgotten how. I had thought he was the same."

Her hand curled to cup his skin, hiding the inked lines.

"Having a thing like this," Her fingers pressed down, almost angrily, "It's a flag to enemies. 'Here is my weak spot.' It asks for trouble. It shows those who would hurt us exactly where to strike."

Hansel thought about his sister. How many times had a witch tried to use the safety of one of them against the other?

But still, he couldn't imagine not having her by his side. And the idea that Natasha believed the things she was saying broke his heart.

"He was smart enough, at least, to not paint this target until after, well." She huffed a bitter laugh.

"After?" Hansel asked tentatively, doubting he'd like the answer.

The silence stretched.

"She died, didn't she." He said quietly. It wasn't really a question.

Natasha slid from the bed. Hansel watched her dress.

Her back was straight and her movements efficient, but there was still something sad about her that Hansel could understand.

He touched his tattooed skin, and settled the blanket over himself to hide the image from her. It must be a painful reminder.

Natasha palmed her breasts into position inside her catsuit and zipped up her boots.

She lingered in the doorway and turned to regard him.

"I'm going to SHIELD HQ to debrief," She said. Hansel didn't know what that meant. "I'll be back soon."

She closed the door behind her.

Hansel sighed and pressed his head back into the pillow. He rubbed his hands over his eyes and tried to figure out how he felt about what had just happened.

He got up and got dressed. He wasn't tired anymore.

He touched the inked lines again, pity welling up in him; for Clint Barton, who clearly couldn't let his dead lover go, and for Natasha, pretending that she didn't love Clint.

He dragged his clothes on and wandered out. He sort of wanted to go back down to Tony's workshop but didn't think he'd be welcome.

He went to the kitchen instead. He'd take another look at the refrigerator. Maybe follow Jarvis to the computer people kept mentioning.

Tony was in the kitchen drinking directly from the coffee pot.

Hansel blinked.

Tony got a sheepish look about him, and then poured from the pot into his mug primly, pretending Hansel hadn't walked in on him guzzling the stuff.

He set the pot back in its holding place in the machine and turned to give Hansel an assessing stare.

Hansel stared back, not sure if he should apologize for examining the Roadster earlier.

"Okay, I'm just going to move right past the can of worms that is you-clearly-just-had-sex-with-Natasha. Or, you know, probably more Natasha-clearly-just-had-sex-with-you. It's an ugly, complicated can and I'm sure I'd get stabbed by someone at the end of it. Jarvis, make a note of my maturity and self-preservation."

"Yes, sir." Came the weary reply.

Hansel inhaled to say something but Tony powered on.

"Where did you learn mechanics?" He asked.

"What?" Hansel replied. That hadn't been what he'd been expecting.

"Jarvis showed me the footage of you in the workshop. You," Tony pursed his lips and nodded appreciatively, "You really knew what you were doing, which is surprising if I've understood your context correctly. You don't have cars where you come from, right?" Tony waited until Hansel nodded. "Computers? Indoor plumbing? Electricity?"

Hansel shook his head at each.

"Remarkable." Tony said to himself and took a sip of his coffee, not taking his eyes off Hansel.

Hansel shifted, not sure what to make of the scrutiny. He dropped his eyes to Tony's chest, light catching his attention. The man had changed out of his suit and into something loose and casual.

Hansel read the lettering and started, meeting Tony's eyes warily.

"What?" Tony tilted his head at the angry look Hansel shot him.

"What is meant by this?" Hansel waved a hand at him.

Tony looked down at himself.

"The… arc reactor? Let's work our way up to that, okay?"

"The what? No." Hansel shook his head, wanting to give Tony the benefit of the doubt, but there weren't a lot of ways to read this. "'Black Sabbath.'" He said flatly, waving a hand at Tony's shirt.

Tony blinked down at himself.

And burst out laughing.

Hansel frowned hard, not seeing the humor. The last black Sabbath he'd been to, Gretel had been tied to a rock while a witch aimed to cut out her beating heart.

"Because of the witches, shit." Tony wiped his eyes, looked at Hansel's unamused face and fell into giggling again.

Hansel eyed the knives on the counter.

Tony followed his gaze and forced himself to subside, waving a hand defensively, dismissively.

"No, no, it's not… it's a band name. Music. It's a musical group. Oh god, I'm so telling Bruce about this."

"I don't understand." But he did relax a bit.

"Jarvis, play… oh, let's see."

"Perhaps 'paranoid,' sir?" Jarvis suggested, and Hansel relaxed further. He trusted Jarvis, and since he didn't seem alarmed, Hansel was willing to follow his lead.

"Yeah, hit it."

The room filled with sound. Hansel jumped at the unexpected noise of it and, after a moment, tentatively labeled it music.

"Come on, I want to show you something. You'll love it," Tony said and started walking away, the assumption that Hansel would follow almost annoying enough that Hansel nearly stayed where he was to be stubborn.

The music was weird but not unpleasant, even if he couldn't understand a single word that was being...he hesitated again before calling it 'sung.'

Tony had a spring in his step like an excited child. Hansel's irritation gave way to curiosity.

He followed.

They took an elevator up. The music followed them, never varying in volume as they moved. Hansel was starting to get a feel for it, although he still didn't approve of the name.

Tony led him into another lab and Hansel's eyes instantly fell on the suit of armor gleaming in display against the back wall.

Tony opened the door and Hansel hurried past him, eager for a closer look.

He examined the smooth, graceful lines. There were so many precisely crafted interlocking parts – it was a masterpiece. It was beautiful.

"You made this?" He asked, and cast a glance at Tony.

The man beamed at him.

"Wait until you see the assembly rig."

**Chapter 12**

Thor stood in the mouth of the cave and smiled at Clint, and Clint, even through the wave of his relief, noticed a couple of things worth raising an eyebrow.

The first was the Thor was holding the tesseract – or, rather, the handle of the way-gate cage Tony and Bruce had built for it. The pale blue light of the cube turned the red of Thor's cloak a sickly color in the otherwise dark space.

The second thing was that there was a cuff and chain hanging from Thor's other wrist that disappeared after a few links. There was a curve to the five or so links that were there that suggested tension, something holding it up on the other side, but the metal faded into invisibility before that connection.

It shrieked of magic.

Clint took this in even as he stood and ran over to Thor.

"Hawkeye!" Thor greeted warmly, clasping his hand around Clint's and pulling him into an unexpected hug. Clint just went with it. Thor, admittedly, gave great hugs, even though the proximity of the tesseract made his skin itch.

Thor righted him with a hand on his shoulder and looked him over, smiling broadly. He kept his other hand wrapped firmly around the handle of the cage.

Thor turned his attention to the others, taking in Edward with mild surprise. He nodded at them politely and turned back to Clint.

"Heimdall told me the enchantress Amora seized your mind and exchanged it with an inhabitant of this realm – yet I see it was your entire form." He gave Clint a puzzled look.

"Not so much, actually. But it is weird as hell, right?"

Thor frowned. "Hel is, I shall concede, atypical, but have a care how you speak of my niece."

"What?" Clint blinked.

"What?" Thor blinked back.

Gretel stepped forward.

"You can switch them? Give me my brother back?"

"My lady…" Thor flicked his eyes to Clint.

"Gretel." Clint supplied.

"My lady Gretel," Thor continued smoothly, "There are things that can be done but none immediately, and the tesseract cannot stay long out of Asgard." He gave her a friendly smile, but his body language was fidgety and hurried. "I must apologize but my stay must be brief by necessity. Friend Clint," Thor hefted the cage so that the other handle pointed outward. "I find taking a deep breath helps."

Clint went to retrieve the bag with the extra syringe and vials and shouldered it and his gun.

"Bye," Edward rumbled.

"Bye Edward, Ben," Clint nodded.

"You're not leaving without me." Gretel said fiercely. She stood between Clint and Thor. "Ben, go with Edward and turn in the witch. She won't keep. Stay in town five days – tell anyone who asks that we're investigating her lair. If we're not back by then, head to our stash. We'll meet you there."

Thor, behind her, was regarding the top of Gretel's head with such bemusement that Clint nearly smiled. Thor met his eyes. Clint shrugged.

"Lady Gretel, may I extend the hospitality of Asgard to you as well," He said. Clint gave him a great deal of credit for not sounding at all sarcastic.

She nodded firmly and quickly grabbed her own bag and weapon, eyeing Clint warningly when he walked past her to stand next to Thor.

"Wait, so you're actually going to another world?" Ben asked. He wilted. "And you're making me stay with the witch corpse?"

"The smell is unimaginable if you wait too long to burn it." Gretel assured him, closing her fingers around the handle. "And we have a reputation to maintain with the townspeople."

"I'll make sure she takes back a souvenir." Clint quipped and wrapped his hand next to hers.

Thor took a deep breath – they did as well – and twisted the cage.

While in flight school – or, SHIELD's version of it, which had lasted less than two months and had put Clint's body through so much stress he'd finished the day nearly too tired to draw his bow – he'd been put in what the techs, with unwarranted affection, called The Spinner.

The first time, the Gs had made him pass out. When he came to, he promptly threw up.

He got the hang of it quickly enough, but riding through the tesseract made him think back to that first spin with warm nostalgia.

Stark had completely fucking lied about the smooth transition of portals.

They landed (appeared? He wasn't sure) all at once. One moment his body was being pulled in all directions, the world a smear of colors, and then next he was standing in a round golden room, gravity reasserting itself as if had never left.

Clint and Gretel both fell to their knees. Clint was somewhat gratified to note that even Thor stumbled a bit.

"My apologies, friends; the transition is really only meant for two."

Clint took Thor's offered hand and levered himself up. Gretel took a moment longer to collect herself, but took Thor's hand as well.

Clint eyed the weird, vanishing chain on the thunder god's wrist. He inhaled to ask, but Thor was already moving, striding confidently towards a sweeping golden archway.

Clint eye's fell on the man standing beside that arch. He was bigger than Thor which was impressive by itself, but when his orange eyes fell on him Clint shivered. This had to be Heimdall.

"Thank you," He told him quietly, intensely sincere.

Heimdall bowed his head slightly, his golden horned helmet gleaming. Clint wondered what it was about Asgardians and entirely impractical headgear. He had a suspicion that Thor had an equally stupid helmet around here somewhere.

"You're Heimdall?" Gretel asked, and Clint felt a surge of affection for the fearless way she met those intimidating eyes.

"I am." Heimdall said, voice deep and solemn.

"Can you see my brother? Is he alright?"

"Be at ease, Lady Gretel." He said, and his eyes moved to Clint's with slow deliberation, "He is protected and hale."

Clint felt a knot of tension release and exhaled slowly. Gretel wasn't as subtle about her relief.

"Friends," Thor prodded, and lifted the tesseract significantly, "Come. Heimdall, thank you."

"Of course, my prince."

Beyond the archway was a wide, open… the word Clint was going to go with was 'highway,' and jutting from the horizon he could see what he could only describe as a palace.

That was a more distant concern than the horses that were saddled and clearly being held for them.

"Oh hell no." He muttered. Gretel twitched an eyebrow at him.

"Fandral!" Thor greeted the man holding the reigns. The guy had facial hair that could rival Stark's.

"Your lady mother is most eager to meet your Midgardian warrior. But who is this ravishing creature?" He swept in, still holding the reigns loosely, and lifted Gretel's hand, clearly intending to kiss it.

Gretel snatched her hand back before he made contact and shot him an incredulous, affronted look.

Fandral stood back up and smiled easily at her, tilting his head curiously.

"Oh Thor, you've brought a second Sif. Was not one enough?"

"I'll tell her you said that," Thor grinned in reply.

"Pray don't – I enjoy having all of my blood on the inside of my skin." Fandral dipped his head to Gretel in apology. "I meant no offense, my lady."

Gretel adjusted the strap of her crossbow.

"None taken."

Fandral smiled, clearly amused, and swung himself up into his saddle.

The horses were big, brown creatures, broad enough that Thor didn't even look disproportionate once he was seated. Gretel swung up easily.

And then it was the three of them – and the four horses – staring at him expectantly.

Clint repressed an aggravated sigh and placed a foot carefully in a stirrup. The mechanics of it looked simple enough.

He levered himself up.

The beast shifted under his thighs and the saddle was ridiculously uncomfortable. He frowned at the back of his horse's head.

There was a weight to the silence and Clint grudgingly looked up.

The others were watching him with obvious amusement.

"You sit like a little girl. Have you never ridden a horse?" Fandral teased.

"No." Clint answered shortly. There had been ponies in the circus, but they'd been vicious. After the second time he'd gotten bit, he kept well clear of them.

And there had been the odd op that dropped him in places that used horses, but it had never been something he'd actually done.

Thor leaned towards Fandral and, in what Clint was sure he thought was a conspiratorial whisper, told him; "Midgard has those machines now, remember?"

"Ah," Fandral nodded. "Well, better hold tight then." He smiled, and guided his horse into an easy canter towards the palace. Thor and Gretel followed and, after a few experimental prods, Clint's horse took pity on him and trotted after them.

Chapter End Notes

Side-note, and I am *so amused* by this - last chapter, where Tony's drinking from the coffee pot? Julorean pointed out that Clint does exactly that in a recent Hawkeye comic. I went looking, and oh my freaking lol: uploads/3/31566/2696568-clint_

God I've got to start reading the comics. :)

**Chapter 13**

Clint did not like horses.

They stank, they moved unpredictably, and all the jostling was slowly but surely squashing his balls.

The others made introductions and Clint, falling behind them when his horse decided it didn't want to trot quite that fast, caught bits and pieces of the conversation as their voices drifted back. It sounded like Fandral was telling Gretel a story, all excited gestures and bursts of laughter. From the way Thor squirmed, Clint suspected was probably a story about him.

Gretel looked amused.

The road was really more of a bridge, Clint decided; just an improbably wide and long one, and supported by ominously delicate-looking golden braces every fifty yards or so. The water below was calm, a slate grey color. Clint noticed the occasional flash of creatures moving below the surface.

Asgard was beautiful. He'd give it that, despite the horses.

A fat moon – or what Clint thought was a moon, although with Asgard who knew – hung in the afternoon sky. Buildings swept up that looked more like statues, all intricately carved stone facades and detailed features. Clint eyed the physics-defying architecture and smiled to himself, imagining how thoroughly it would provoke Bruce and Tony.

The highway merged into the city smoothly and the others slowed their horses a bit. Clint's beast finally caught up.

The palace was a massive thing. The towering pieces of it jumbled together like the pipes of a church organ.

Gretel was openly staring, Fandral failing to hold her attention completely despite his efforts.

Clint was trying to be a bit more suave, but his horse had kind of guaranteed limited success there from the start. He took in the hundreds of places he could perch to assist in an attack or take out a target. The structure of the place was a sniper's dream.

Clint smiled at a statue of an archer as they trotted past.

Thor called out a greeting to the guards at the gate as they approached, and soon they were dismounting and handing the reins over to the attendants standing in wait and following Thor inside.

Clint slid from the saddle and forced himself not rub his inner thighs. Hansel evidently did a bit of horse riding, because Clint wasn't as sore as he'd expected to be. Still. If the journey had been longer, he might've sacrificed that dignity.

The hallways were, as expected, opulent almost to the point of gaudy. Thor led them through the golden sprawling maze of the palace with a determined stride.

"Thor tells us of your unparalleled skill with a bow," Fandral said, falling into step beside him. "Hogun has some ability there as well. It would give me great pleasure to see you two compete."

Thor laughed.

"Has Hogun wronged you while I've been away that you would set him up for such failure?"

Clint kinda loved Thor.

"Come now, you say he shot down an enemy in flight without even looking. This must be seen!" Fandral insisted.

"Do you happen to have a spare flying enemy on hand?" Clint asked dryly.

Fandral sniffed a dismissal, amused and undeterred.

Thor turned a corner and Clint noticed the stationed guards (all with stupid helmets, he noted) started to increase in number the further down the corridor they walked.

"My lady Gretel, I see that you carry a crossbow yourself. Would you grace us with a demonstration of your skill?"

Gretel side-eyed him.

"I'm not following Clint," She smiled, "I saw him shoot a witch in the head a thousand paces out, at night."

Fandral laughed.

"That realm and witches! Thor, this is why I never visited when you took your sojourn there."

Thor rolled his eyes at Fandral. There was a story there.

"Sojourn?" Clint asked.

Thor nodded, and they turned another corner. The lighting shifted from the warm golden tones into something colder and less welcoming. There were a lot of guards.

"Some three hundred years ago. My brother talked me into taking a break from my training and slipped me through Yggdrisil's branches, beyond the reach of the bifrost to your beautiful realm, my lady," He smiled at Gretel, but the look turned wistful when he added. "Then the brat stole my hammer and left me there for two score years."

Clint shifted and bit his tongue, keeping his thoughts of Thor's brother behind his teeth. He was also fairly amazed at the off-hand mention of Thor's evident longevity. He'd have to tell SHIELD about that.

"He unseated a tyrant witch, resurrected a princess and fought a troll." Fandral told them gleefully. "It's a great tale. Thor, you'll tell it tonight, at the feast?"

"I didn't actually fight a troll." Thor corrected, but dipped his head in ascent to the request. "But the witch was a fearsome creature. It would give me a great deal of pleasure to hear the Lady Gretel speak of her own victories against those formidable foes."

Gretel smiled, an open look of flattered pleasure.

It was weird seeing all the ways Gretel was like Natasha, and then be reminded how completely she wasn't.

"Thor, how do we fix this?" Clint asked, waving a hand at himself. He'd been very patient.

Thor frowned.

"Heimdall told me this was Amora's work. She is very skilled in the magical arts. We will have to consult my lady mother."

"Yes," Fandral said, perking up with excitement. "This is not your form, is it? What do you normally look like?"

"This, actually." Clint answered, wryly. "But with a few more scars."

His fingers drifted up to his hip.

Guards parted and allowed Thor through. They eyed Clint and Gretel sharply.

They walked into a large stone room, the walls dotted with alcoves that glittered with displayed treasures. Clint's eyes locked suspiciously on the unobtrusive chests and bland-looking boxes.

"Wait here a moment, friends." Thor said and pressed his hand to a wall. Clint watched it melt away. Thor stepped forward and it reformed behind him.

"A welcoming feast," Fandral told them, picking up the conversational thread. "Thor asked his father for permission to take the tesseract and retrieve you before the assemblage of the hall. We have all heard of your valor in battle, you and your Avengers. And," Fandral's moustache drooped as he took on a serious tone, "At Loki's trial, we learned of the wrong done to you. You have my deepest sympathies, friend."

Fandral clapped a comforting hand on Clint's shoulder. Clint looked from it to Fandral's painfully honest eyes.

"Thanks." He settled on.

Fandral withdrew his hand.

"Asgard would welcome you with food and shared tales. And you of course as well, my lady," Fandral added.

The wall melted away again and Thor reappeared. He'd left the tesseract behind.

Clint's eyes again caught on the disappearing chain on Thor's left wrist. Thor followed his gaze and lifted his hand. The abbreviated chain floated out from the cuff and, as he watched, it twitched in movement that hadn't been Thor's.

"Know, Clint Barton, that my brother pays for the crimes against you and Midgard." He said, nodding at the cuff.

Thor lowered his wrist and didn't elaborate. Clint wanted to ask - and knew he would eventually – but the somber, defeated look on Thor's face dissuaded him from pressing the matter just now.

"Come," Fandral said, voice forcefully cheerful and after too long of a pause. "Sif and the Warriors Two miss you."

"It's scant been four hours," Thor told him skeptically, "And 'Warriors Two?'"

"Well, it's hardly 'Three' when I'm all the way over here, is it?" He winked.

At Clint's wrist, the alarm started its twitchy, creaky vibration.

Clint sighed, drew the syringe out and injected himself in the thigh. Fandral and Thor both watched him curiously.

"So," Clint said, meeting Gretel's eyes briefly. "About your 'lady mother?'"

Chapter End Notes

Yes, that was absolutely a reference to "Snow White and the Huntsman." You have no idea how thoroughly that is my headcanon, or how happy I was when Hemsworth's character wasn't given a name. Because, obviously, he was totally Thor.

**Chapter 14**

Natasha walked through SHIELD with the sort of straight-backed determination that made people, even trained agents, give way.

She'd...borrowed the motorcycle prototype Stark was finishing for Rogers, wanting something dangerous enough to keep her distracted thoughts focused while she rode to the New York headquarters.

She'd told Hansel she was going to debrief and while this wasn't untrue, it also wasn't her purpose.

The security checkpoints barely slowed her.

Three floors and six heavily locked doors later, she walked into a room in SHIELD's medical R&D division.

There were only five people in SHIELD who knew what was in this room: Fury, Hill, two on-site doctors, and Natasha.

And the only reason she knew was because she knew Fury.

But, more than that, she knew Phil Coulson.

She let herself in and closed the door gently behind her, hearing the hiss and click of it firmly locking.

Phil Coulson lay in the hospital bed, surrounded by the tangle of equipment that came with being comatose.

There was a small cactus sitting in a pot on the bedside table. That was new.

Phil disdained flowers, so she wondered if it was Hill or Fury that had brought it in.

Natasha sat in the chair next to his bed and drew one of Coulson's limp, cool hands into hers. She traced the gun callouses on his fingers and hated that inactivity had begun to soften them.

She imagined these hands touching Clint's body. Phil was fiercely competent but there was also undeniably a gentle side to him.

She thought about what sex between the two of them had been like. Would Clint have teased him, called him 'sir?' Had it been violent? Sweet?

She could imagine them cuddling together after, both of them touch-starved and pressing close enough to feel the other's heart beating. Perhaps Phil would drape a hand over Clint's waist, fingers falling to that then un-inked place on his hip.

She wondered when Clint had gotten the tattoo. It hadn't been before the battle, she was sure of that, but there had been a handful of times when he might have slipped away and had it done in the weeks that followed.

Clint had been a mess following the Battle of New York. He'd stumbled through shawarma and a quick debrief and then disappeared for five days when the WSC collected him to verify, to their standards, that he wasn't still compromised.

It had been a long five days for Natasha. She'd just gotten him back, and having him whisked away again by an authority she barely trusted more than Loki was a stress that she had had a hard time keeping hidden.

Agent Hill had handed her an authorization for a leave request Natasha hadn't submitted. She took it gladly.

She accepted Stark's invitation to the Tower, and toasted with the others, minus Clint, when Stark had revealed his engagement to Potts.

She'd watched Tony and Bruce build the tesseract's cage, and sat with Thor while he watched his brother, pinned under his hammer in a maximum security holding cell in the New York headquarters. They'd neither of them felt the need to speak in their vigil, but she knew Thor appreciated the company anyway.

She made Steve hot chocolate when he stumbled into the communal kitchen on that third evening, sweaty and pale and obviously shaking off a nightmare. She'd been awake because her worry for Clint had reduced her to lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

Steve had made an effort to hide his own weakness, and Natasha made a note to teach him a proper poker face sometime soon.

It didn't take much coaxing to get him to open up.

When Rogers told her about the blood smeared trading cards, it had niggled in the back of her mind.

Natasha comforted Steve, slipping on a mask with half a thought and becoming someone gentle and maternal. It wasn't as insincere as she wanted it to be, but she'd worry about that later.

She'd made him hot chocolate and eventually talked him back to bed.

Then she turned her mind back to her teased doubts.

Why hadn't Coulson secured his cards before engaging Loki?

He loved those cards.

She'd left the tower and had gone to SHIELD.

It took four hours of trawling through information in the security room at the New York headquarters before she admitted defeat. The surveillance for the helicarrier would be hard-copy only (Stark's fault, she was sure) and the discs weren't here.

She had to put it on a backburner until she got a chance to return to the helicarrier.

Bruce and Tony finished the tesseract cage that morning.

Thor had tested it, grasping the handles and twisting. He'd disappeared in a column of blue light, which was tentatively labeled a success, pending his return.

Thor came back half an hour later with an Asgardian-crafted muzzle in hand and a grim set to his shoulders.

Clint was released from the WSC.

Officially, it was because it was important for public image for him to be seen with the group escorting the war criminal off-planet.

Unofficially, Natasha wasn't even sure she wanted to know what strings Fury had had to pull to get his asset back so quickly.

Clint hid his blood-shot eyes behind thick sunglasses and hid his anger and pain behind a confident stance and easy smile.

Natasha approved.

After Thor left, she'd kept close to Clint, waiting until they were in the privacy of her rooms in the tower to speak to him.

"So, Stark says he's building floors for each of us?" Clint had asked.

"I've seen the blueprints." Natasha confirmed. "Or, well, the blueprints that he and Potts keep adjusting."

"That's nuts, right?" Clint slid the sunglasses off. He looked exhausted, too weary to argue with the generosity but too unused to being given things to take it at face value.

"Stark is happy. He gets magnanimous when he's happy." She'd shrugged.

"When he's unhappy, what happens to the rooms?" Clint had muttered.

"Your rooms." She corrected. "He doesn't take back gifts. He still hasn't taken the War Machine back from Colonel Rhodes."

Clint had sat on the bed beside her, leaning against her shoulder heavily. The silence stretched and Natasha let it, knowing he had something he wanted to get off his chest.

She had thought it was going to be about Loki, or his stay with the WSC.

"I can't believe he's dead." He said at last.

Natasha kept her face blank. Clint took her non-reaction as an invitation to go on.

"Do you remember that shitshow of an op in Djibouti?" He huffed a laugh, and Natasha noticed with quiet alarm that his eyes were glistening. "Son of a bitch got held captive for less than half an hour and still managed to come back with two fewer toes and molars. Do you remember what he said when we busted him out?"

Natasha did. She watched the path a tear took down the side of his nose, watched it fall and seep a damp circle on his pants leg.

"'I hate it when they break fingers. It makes the paperwork a bitch.'" She recited.

Clint laughed, and brought his hand up to cover his eyes while he quietly broke.

Natasha laid a hand on his shaking shoulders and soothed him.

"You should rest." She told him. He was clearly suffering from sleep deprivation on top of everything else.

She held her tongue about her suspicions. It would hurt Clint more if she raised his hopes and was wrong.

He'd clung to her when she went to leave, and she'd stroked his hair while he slept.

It was a shorter nap than he'd needed but they'd been recalled to the helicarrier for a full debrief.

They separated for their individual reviews and Natasha's heart hurt as she watched him go. This, trying to explain to people what it was like to be unmade… she didn't envy him the next few hours and she wasn't expecting her own to be easy.

She'd calmly reviewed the footage of herself fleeing from the Hulk on the helicarrier. When the senior agents doing the review asked her about the eight minutes that followed that, when she'd disappeared from the camera feed, she calmly lied.

She told them about the fight with Clint, and the come-down he'd gone through afterwards.

She walked them through her role in the Battle of New York, and gave them a detailed analysis of her teammates from her observations during the battle and in the time she'd spent with them in the tower since.

She'd been dismissed after that and, finally, she was able to steal down to the security room and get her hands on the surveillance discs.

She stole them too easily (had to point the weaknesses in security out to Hill later) and retreated to Coulson's office. It was a secure room and she knew she wouldn't be disturbed there. That, and she knew Coulson's password. It would save her time finding a secure computer.

Natasha sat, loaded the disc and skipped to the part she needed.

She followed the internal surveillance of Coulson leaving the bridge moments after the first explosion. She watched him walk with calm, purposed strides, pausing only to give orders to the junior agents he encountered, organizing and deploying them like the consummate professional he was.

He reached the room where the Phase 2 weapons were secured and Natasha watched him pause for the first time. On screen, he tilted his head, just a bit, just for a moment, at the latch Rogers had broken.

It was such a small thing but Natasha, trained to see small things, noticed the lapse.

He'd been thinking about Captain America.

Natasha would have expected him to put a hand to his pocket – it would have been his inside breast pocket, she knew. She'd been with him on a couple of ops where he'd found memorabilia. The trading cards were always secured in his inside breast pocket. His hand would drift up and touch his suit protectively from time to time until they were back to their quarters. It was a tell that screamed to pick-pockets and she knew Coulson knew that, but he still did it anyway. Because he loved those cards, and love made people foolish.

And, Natasha knew, Coulson always made sure, absolutely sure that the cards were secured before they went into a combat situation.

He didn't touch his suit, and he didn't transfer the cards from his pocket to the now empty weapon's case.

This, what she was watching, didn't add up.

She watched him confront Loki, watched him get stabbed in the back.

She felt proud as she watched him talk Loki into position and blast him, badass even while bleeding out from a chest wound.

"So that's what it does." He sounded pleased. Natasha snorted with a bastard mix of fondness and grief.

Fury appeared on the screen.

"I'm sorry, boss," Coulson said with more affection than the title would suggest. Fury and Coulson had a long history. They meant more to each other than director and senior agent. "The god rabbited."

"Just stay awake. Eyes on me." Fury crouched in front of him, partially blocking the view of Coulson from that camera's position.

"No. I'm clocked out here."

"Not an option." Fury insisted, ordering him not to die.

"It's okay, boss. This was never going to work… if they didn't have something… to."

Coulson trailed off.

Fury didn't move for a moment. Paramedics burst into the room and he stood, walking out of the way of the camera and letting Natasha see Coulson in full.

The paramedics got him on the gurney and began their flurry of work, opening the bloodied suit even while fitting a mask over Coulson's face.

Fury touched his earpiece. "Agent Coulson is down," He said, watching the paramedics work.

"They called it," He affirmed a moment later, as they hurried the gurney out of the room.

They had not called it.

Natasha sat back in the dark office and took a deep breath. She ejected the disc and turned the computer off. She didn't need to see any more.

Fury was in his office when she came in and caught the disc when she threw it at him.

"Agent Romanov," He greeted, nonplussed. He turned the disc over in his hand and read the identifying stamp.

He looked very unsurprised.

"Explain," She'd ordered simply, and closed and locked his door.

Fury had put his hands on his desk and met her angry stare levelly.

"They needed a push."

"Rogers and Stark?" She asked. She'd suspected as much but she needed to be sure.

Fury nodded.

Natasha paused and thought it through. Fury gave her the moment.

She could see it, of course. The necessity of having that common goal.

It was never going to work without something to avenge.

She smiled bitterly, and Fury tipped his head in agreement.

Fury'd given her a look weighted with unhappiness, and Natasha saw in it a plan that hadn't come together the way he'd wanted it to.

"He won't wake."

Natasha exhaled sharply, the confirmation that Coulson was alive running through her.

But... "What do you mean, 'he won't wake'?"

"I mean, after he stabilized from the sixteen hours of surgery, he wouldn't wake. Still hasn't woken. Medical can't find a reason for it. Given that he wasn't exactly stabbed with an everyday knife..." Fury trailed off.

Natasha shook her head.

"But why not tell them? Even if he's in a coma, they would still-"

"How do you think they'll respond when they find out it's a lie? Do you think Rogers will fall into line after that? Or Stark? The analysts are still saying that Stark has about a thirty percent chance of going rogue. No." He said firmly. "Coulson's sacrifice brought the team together. You and I both know that shared loss is a powerful thing. I can't risk weakening that."

Fury had given her a hard stare.

"You'll keep this secret because you know I'm right. They'll mourn him. And they'll move on. As far as the Avengers Initiative is concerned, Phil is doing me more good dead than alive."

It had been harsh.

"What about Barton?"

"No. You're both going to be working closely with the team, and he's just been through hell. We can reassess in a few months to see if he can be brought in, but not until I know he's stable."

Natasha had fallen silent at that.

At length, and reluctantly, she'd agreed.

Natasha stared at the cactus and swept her thumb over Coulson's knuckles.

"He's in trouble again, you know." She told the quiet room. "I didn't realize how much."

She looked at his face. He could almost be sleeping, if she were the type of person to believe pretty lies. The skin around his eyes looked bruised, his lines between his eyebrows crinkled, his mouth tightly set.

This, this coma, magical stasis, whatever it was, it wasn't restful.

"I'm sorry," She said, and she meant it. When she'd agreed to keep this secret, she hadn't know what Phil had meant to Clint.

Natasha sighed and withdrew her hand.

One problem at a time.

Get Clint back first.

And then decide whether or not to tell him.

Chapter End Notes

"Why isn't this tagged as a fix-it, Liannabob?"

"He's still mostly-dead, which is different from all-dead, but also different from all-alive-and-merrily-boinking-Clint."

**Chapter 15**

Clint easily recognized Sif and the 'Warriors Two,' as Fandral had called them, from surveillance footage during Thor's first contact. He'd been back at the base during the Destroyer incident. He would never – Clint harshly corrected himself- he _had_ never let Coulson live that down.

There was a presence about these people that video didn't really capture. A vibrancy that wasn't completely human that Clint recognized in Thor and Loki as well.

They joined the four of them on their way through the palace. Word of their arrival had already been sent, and feast preparations were, Volstagg assured them, well under way.

"You can smell the roasting boars from the West gardens." He told them, beard crinkling with his smile.

"You can probably smell them from the kitchens, too, you know." Fandral rolled his eyes.

"I'm not allowed in the kitchens." Volstagg's beard drooped.

Sif was trailing fingers through Gretel's loose, messy braid.

"Your hair is so long. Does it not get in the way?"

Gretel raised an eyebrow at her.

"Leaving your arms bare like that and the sporadic bits of armor," Gretel flicked a finger at the solitary shoulder plate, "Don't you get scratched up in a fight?"

Sif beamed at her and, after a moment, Gretel grinned back.

Clint resolved to never let the two of them meet Natasha.

He fell back to walk beside Hogun, who flicked a glance at him out of the corner of his eye and kept quiet. It wasn't uncomfortable or in any way hostile; Hogun just didn't seem to need to chatter.

Thor had joined in in teasing Volstagg, who chuckled good-naturedly and made a lewd rejoined about Thor's hammer that had Sif and Fandral laughing. Gretel looked amused. Clint knew she didn't get the reference to Mjolnir but penis jokes were, apparently, universally recognizable.

Thor led them to their rooms, to "freshen up for the feast," as he said.

"Thor, not to sound ungrateful because I'm really, really not – but, can we skip to the part where I talk to your mom?" Clint asked as Thor swept a door open for Gretel.

"Soon," Thor promised. At his wrist, the abbreviated chain began to sway and twitch violently.

Thor frowned at it.

"A moment, friends," He said and put the fingers of his right hand on the chain and walked them up, following the invisible links about a foot past where they faded out. He curled his hand in a firm grip and pulled himself forward.

It was like Thor had walked into an invisible room. He'd completely disappeared.

Clint blinked.

"Where's Thor?" He asked, and felt a rush of déjà vu wash through him.

"With Loki." Hogun said simply. Sif and the Warriors Three had stopped smiling, staring contemplatively at the space Thor had occupied.

Gretel looked like she was about to ask a question but stopped, seeing the look on Clint's face.

"And where is Loki? He's not just here and invisible, right?" Clint asked, skin crawling at the idea of it.

"Nay, friend. At his trial, the Allfather stripped him of his powers and cast him out." Volstagg said solemnly.

Fandral picked up the explanation at Clint's expectant look. "Even powerless, Loki is too resourceful to go unminded. There were many eager jailers volunteering, but Thor stepped in and claimed him. Loki is bound to Thor, and Thor is bound to Loki."

Hogun lifted an expressive eyebrow, as if to say 'what else is new.'

"So… what's the deal with the vanishing chain?" Clint asked.

"Loki is banished from Asgard, and Thor is prince of this realm. The chain is a compromise. Loki was cast we know not where, but the chain transcends the realms."

"You don't know where Loki is?" Clint raised an eyebrow.

Fandral shook his head.

"The trial was public, but the Allfather did not declare Loki's location. I think Odin still holds some fondness for the foundling."

"Don't let Thor hear you call him that." Sif warned.

"Loki has made a great many enemies. All the realm knows that he is stripped of his magic and an easy target for petty vengance. The Allfather protects him even as he punishes him, for in all the vastness of the known worlds and beyond, only Odin knows where Loki's prison lay, and only he and Thor can access it."

Clint narrowed his eyes and, after a moment, nodded.

"Come," Sif said, breaking the silence that fell and putting a hand on Gretel's elbow, guiding her into the room. "I'll show you the baths."

Clint moved to follow but Fandral cleared his throat, getting his attention.

"Your rooms are down here," He said and waved a hand towards the other side of the hallway.

"Oh," He changed direction.

"Unless you and the Lady Gretel room together?" Fandral asked.

"Well, we had been – wait, no, nooooope. No." Clint corrected himself mid-sentence, still mostly thinking about Loki and a little slow on Fandral's implication. "I'm in her brother's body. No."

"I'm not sure," Volstagg rumbled, eyes glittering with humor, "But I believe his answer is 'no.'"

Thor reappeared, stepping out of nothing and onto the spot he'd vanished from.

He glanced around, gaze stopping when he found Clint's eyes. Thor had a weight of sadness about him that hadn't been there a moment ago.

Fucking Loki, Clint thought darkly, but he kept it off his face.

"What did he want?" Fandral asked, tone carefully neutral. Even in the little time Clint has spent with him, the lack of humor in his voice was glaring.

Thor's eyes flicked at Clint and then he shrugged, putting on a thin carefree mask.

"It's of no importance." Thor said with a smile that fell well short of his eyes.

"Is this why Amora's after you?" Clint asked, nodding at the chain. "To get to Loki? We've been telling her you're in Asgard and she keeps calling us liars."

Volstagg gave a small huff of a laugh.

"That may be Loki's work, actually."

"How's that?" Clint asked sharply.

"She and Loki had a… oh, the Lady Darcy told me the word for this, a moment," Thor paused and thought. "Prank war." He said, looking at Clint with narrowed eyes to confirm the term.

"They've been at each other since they were both children." Fandral snorted. "Do you remember when she trapped him in his female form? It took him almost a month to sort that out."

"I don't quite recall what he did in answer to that. Was it the serpents in her drink at every meal or was it the biting pillows?" Volstagg rumbled contemplatively.

"You have to be fucking kidding me," Clint snapped, and the others startled, giving him their full attention. "She decided to invade my world, terrorize a city and strand me in the body of a diabetic children's story character because of a goddamn prank war?"

"Clint Barton, we will fix this." Thor told him, blue eyes fierce and serious. He put his hands on Clint's shoulders firmly, and Clint tried not to shy away from the chain. "What has been done to you is not permanent, nor will it go unpunished. Midgard and its inhabitants are under Asgard's protection. She has broken our laws and will answer to them."

Clint made his shoulders relax under Thor's hands. After a moment, the god withdrew.

"So," Clint rubbed his eyes tiredly. "What's the plan – we track Amora down and make her undo this?"

"Ah," Fandral said, hesitantly, with a tone of reluctant disagreement.

Clint dropped his hand and looked at him.

"To hear her speak of it – which, she did, at length and with the sincerity of ire – Loki's last ploy befuddled her sense of place. Amora herself probably doesn't know where she is right now." Fandral spread his hands apologetically.

"It's probably why she's been causing such trouble in places she knows you've been. This has been going on for, oh, at least a few months. She must be pretty angry by now." Volstagg added and stroked his beard.

"Great," Clint sighed.

Thor opened the door to what Clint assumed was to be his room and gestured for him to enter.

"Wash and rest, friend. Tonight, we will speak to my mother at the feast. You will be righted. I swear."

Clint nodded, giving Thor an apologetic glance. This wasn't his fault.

Thor smiled at him in understanding and closed the door.

Chapter End Notes

Holy shit, you guys. (You guys... holy shit)

So, I avoid tumblr because I have an unreasonably high standard of spoilers (I won't even watch trailers), but someone made a comment about my work being rec'd there, and I get really curious about what people say. I did a little narcissistic googling and OMG THERE'S ART! :O

post/43879271906

My mind is seriously so blown by this. I'm. I can't even. It's so pretty!

**Chapter 16**

Hansel didn't even look up as Bruce walked in. He was aware of him peripherally, but his attention was completely focused on Tony, now standing unarmored at the end of the sweeping balcony.

"One more time?" He requested, and Tony smirked.

"Jarvis, let's do this at a quarter speed." The man said.

"Yes sir."

Hansel paced Tony along the walkway and stared in total fascination as the metal plates in the ground shifted and retracted, tool-bedecked metal arms extending and fitting pieces of the armor around Tony's body with graceful precision. Tony obligingly walked slowly this time, giving Hansel a chance to observe the machine's workings more precisely.

Hansel was not unaware of the cliff-face of a drop sloping down the side of the building. Tony had lured him out here gradually, one piece of tech at a time and had finally left him watching from inside the suite while he walked through the assembly rig. Hansel had watched, transfixed, vertigo falling away under the sheer press of his fascination.

Tony had stood at the far end of the walkway and waved a gauntleted hand at him, then walked back towards the building, the mechanical tangle of arms stripping the suit off in a complex flurry until he walked back into the room in his plain clothes, armor neatly tucked away under the floor.

Hansel had stared at him with wide eyes. Tony preened.

"Again?" He'd asked.

When Bruce joined them, it was actually the fourth time Tony had walked into the armor. Hansel would feel self-conscious about asking the man to repeat the performance so many times but it was clear Tony didn't mind.

Bruce leaned against the doorframe and smiled at them.

"Are you doing a little turn on the catwalk?" He called to Tony. Tony barked a laugh, voice rough and mechanical inside the helmet.

"I'm only sufficiently sexy for this suit, but that's the suit's fault, not mine." He replied, cocking a metal hip. Bruce grinned.

"Steve's making dinner." Bruce said.

The helmet tipped to the side in confusion.

"Didn't we just have Thai?"

"That was seven hours ago." Bruce pointed out. "Sometimes people eat more than once a day. It's a thing." He added dryly.

Hansel was getting fairly hungry, now that he thought about it.

"But I haven't even shown him the flight capabilities yet." Tony whined mechanically.

Flight capabilities? Food could wait. He looked from the armor to Bruce with imploring eyes.

Bruce met his gaze and huffed a laugh.

"I'm not your mother. I'm just a messenger." He shook his head, smiling, "And the message is that if you want pancakes and eggs, you'd better go now."

"Is he making bacon?" Tony asked.

"I believe there was some mention of bacon, yes. Which is great, because I love bacon, and will be sure to eat a lot of it. Don't worry, though – I'm sure Steve and Natasha will leave you plenty."

"Fine, I'm coming."

Bruce was already walking back inside. Hansel walked beside Tony as the rig once more stripped the armor off.

"That is so…" Hansel shook his head. "Is the machine triggered to track your body or have you trained yourself to move the same way every time?" He asked.

"It's a bit of both, actually, although more the first than the second. There are sensors – that is, uhh…" Tony wiggled his metal clad fingers, searching for the words to explain. He lowered his hand and let the rig dismantle the gauntlet. "Think of it like mechanical eyes and fingers. They're built all over the rig to see and feel where I am, but I also have to mostly stick to the same path every time or I might walk out of the reach of the arms before they finish their work."

Hansel nodded.

Once they were inside, he felt the tension he'd been peripherally aware of fall away. He really didn't like heights.

"Tell me about something you've made." Tony said, dark eyes earnest.

"Nothing like this," Hansel said immediately, but Tony shook his head.

"I had the advantage of being born in a mechanically advanced century. I've made things from scratch before but it's always been with the help of advanced tools. I'm really curious about what a mind like yours came up with working around the limitations of your time."

He snorted, adding before Hansel could answer, "You know, I'm pretty sure I'm Flowers-for-Algernoning you. Going back to atavistic tech after getting to play with my toys?" He shuddered dramatically.

Hansel shrugged. He didn't know what algernoning flowers meant, but he could read the context. He'd happily deal with losing the shiny machines if it meant having his sister back.

Bruce was holding the elevator for them and after they joined him, Tony settled an expectant look at Hansel.

Hansel thought about Clint's retractable bow.

"I made a collapsible rifle." He said. Bruce and Tony both raised eyebrows at that. Hansel smiled and continued. "It's a series of interlocking chambers that fold out to create a barrel." He gestured with his hands, miming how the pieces aligned and forming the dimensions of the finished gun.

"The bullets, too," Hansel added. "I built them from the inside out. Explosive pellets inside a shell that spirals off when fired. It took me about a year to get the balance right."

"Huh. I used to make weapons, too." Tony said. He looked contemplative and, oddly, Hansel thought, a little sad. Maybe he hadn't been very good at it, although that was difficult to believe given how beautiful and intricate the armor was.

The smell of cooking food met them when the doors opened.

"Sir," Jarvis said. "Miss Potts is on her way over."

Tony hesitated.

"Jarvis, what day is it?"

"Tuesday, sir. You have a board meeting in an hour."

Tony groaned into his hand.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I mentioned it twice this morning," Jarvis said, tone dipping into disapproval, "You informed me that you would reprogram me with a taser if I mentioned it again."

"You know I wouldn't actually. And besides, all of your server rooms are loaded with neurotoxin if anyone even tries to mess with you."

"Yeah, I'm really gonna pretend I didn't hear that." Bruce said, shaking his head.

"You and me both," Steve called from the kitchen. "Hansel, can you lend me a hand?"

"I see how it is," Bruce mock-grumped.

"You eat things before they're ready." Steve called back.

Hansel walked into the kitchen. Steve was carefully turning over crisping bacon. He nodded his head towards the counter.

"If you could please crack about a dozen egss in that bowl, I'd appreciate it." Steve asked.

Tony leaned against the doorframe. Bruce had snuck in around him and took the counter space next to Hansel and started chopping... there were some things he didn't recognize, but he was guessing it was all fruit. Steve eyed Bruce suspiciously but didn't comment.

"I can crack eggs." Tony huffed.

"Pepper's told me about your omelette skills." Steve said darkly. Tony gave him an unimpressed look.

Hansel cracked eggs into the bowl, setting the shells back in the container.

"We should probably start exploring some alternatives to Amora," Bruce said quietly. He flicked a glance at Hansel and stealthily popped a piece of a fruit in his mouth. Without looking up from the pancake he was flipping, Steve sighed.

"How do you mean?" Hansel asked.

"She's proving somewhat difficult to capture," Tony explained. "So we should start looking at plan B options."

"After dinner, let's head up to the lab and start seeing if we can quantify a difference. Since this is clearly magic and the research we got from Loki is... minimal, it might not pan out. But it can't hurt to try." Bruce said.

"Sure." Hansel agreed. "Who's Loki?"

"Thor's brother." Tony said. He stole a small handful of berries and started eating them as he talked. "He invaded Earth a few months ago. It was a thing. It'd be great if we could talk to Thor, but he didn't exactly leave his digits."

"His what?" Steve asked. Hansel was glad he wasn't the only one confused.

"A way of contacting him." Bruce said. "What about... oh, I forget the name." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "The Asgardian watcher Thor mentioned? It's in the Foster report."

"Heimdall." Tony said. He ate another berry. "I thought of that, but it's pretty clear from the SHIELD reports that's a no-go." He shrugged and looked at Hansel. "The tests aren't painful. Just some brain scans and blood work. Hey, actually, speaking of SHIELD and magic, they still have Loki's glowstick. Jarvis, start digging up their latest research on that. We can use it to compare, at least."

"Working on it now, sir. Would you like me to add it to your private server?"

"Yep, you know the drill."

"I'm going to go ahead and pretend I haven't heard that as well," Steve said, stacking finished pancakes onto a platter and pouring another batch. Tony smirked at him.

The elevator opened and Tony jerked up, fleeing the room through the far doorway. A moment later, a tall red-haired woman walked into the kitchen. Hansel looked up from his eggs with a smile of greeting.

She took them in.

"Boys," She nodded. "Steve, that smells amazing. You're a terror to my diet."

Steve grinned at her.

"Ma'am, you do not need to be dieting."

"Flatterer." She accused, grinning. She locked her eyes on the pile of hastily-abandoned berries Tony had left behind. "But it really won't save you if you don't tell me where he is."

Steve snorted a laugh and waved his spatula towards the door.

"He went that way."

She dipped her head in thanks and started to follow him. She paused, hand on the doorway and looked at him.

"Your hair looks really nice without the gel, Clint. You should wear it like that more often." She smiled and, at his mumbled thanks, left to chase after Tony.

Hansel flicked his eyes up to his bangs and looked at Bruce. Bruce was looking at his hair, mouth quirked to the side contemplatively.

"Gel?" Hansel asked.

"I could tell you," Bruce smiled, "But I kinda agree with her." He ate another piece of fruit.

"Okay, you, out of my kitchen." Steve told him, shooing him with the bacon tongs.

"Technically it's Tony's kitchen." Bruce hedged, snatching a piece of cooling bacon from its plate.

"Out!" Steve ordered, but he was smiling.

Hansel couldn't help smiling too.

It wasn't home and he missed Gretel fiercely, but he had to admit; it could be a lot worse.

**Chapter 17**

Clint set his gun and coat down on the table and left the rest of his clothes in a trail leading towards what he hoped was a shower.

The room was huge – Clint had a fireplace against one wall and the full sized skin of some fanged animal he didn't recognize warming on the stone floor in front of a bed that looked like it could comfortably sleep six people.

The bathroom, likewise, was oversized and opulent. There wasn't a shower, but there was steam rising from the massive bathtub.

Clint dragged a hand through the water, eyebrows rising, impressed, because either the person who had drawn the bath had excellent timing or the tub was magicked to keep the water the perfect temperature.

He stepped into it with a groan of pleasure, sinking into a sprawl with his arms on the lip and legs spread out before him.

The water had a subtle minty, fruity smell. It was kinda girly but Clint didn't really care. The water felt wonderful.

He dropped his arms and rolled his shoulders under the water, letting the heat of it lap up his neck.

There was a window high on the wall and Clint let his eyes drift there. The sky was rimmed in purple, the evening edging into the afternoon. There was a spire of some building just visible inside the frame.

"What the hell am I doing here," He mumbled to himself, rubbing fingers over his sore, needle-pricked thigh. The water was soothing, and the soreness gradually faded into a sensation Clint had a hard time even classifying properly as pain.

There was a hard white ball of something set beside some hand-cloths. After a tentative sniff, Clint felt comfortable calling soap. He worked up a lather and lazily ran the cloth over his shoulders and the back of his neck, down his arms and chest. The soap had a sweet smell to it that was, again, kinda girly. Clint was still too grateful for the warm water to really mind.

He soaped up the cloth again and ran it down his stomach and between his legs.

Lazy and relaxed, he set the cloth aside and let gentle fingers manipulate and clean the soft folds of his foreskin. The lack of circumcision was a little weird. He slid his hand around his cock, and that at least felt familiar.

He gave himself a few unhurried strokes, the heat of the water already bringing blood to the sensitive skin, and tried to decide whether or not he really wanted to bother masturbating.

His body perked up at the idea so Clint settled back, stroking with a little more purpose.

He let his eyes drift shut and spread his knees a little, tilting his hips a bit to get more comfortable.

It didn't feel exactly the same, touching himself. Hansel didn't have the same callouses on his fingertips, and teasing his thumb under the head didn't garner the same jerk of arousal he'd feel in his own body. On the other hand, after he got his foreskin to stay back the head of his dick was so sensitive that the press of the warm water made his thighs tense.

He grinned lazily, imagining Phil's horrified fascination when he got back and told him about jerking off in his doppelganger's body. He'd give Clint a blank stare and wrinkle his nose a bit, hiding a smile, and Clint would grin and merrily muse in too much detail how it didn't even count as cheating, and whether the absence of his lucky silver pube meant that witch hunting should be taken as a less stressful lifestyle than being a SHIELD agent. Phil would-

Clint opened his eyes, smile melting from his face. A weight settled on his chest and he let his hand drop, no longer interested.

He kept forgetting.

He brought his fingers up to his hip and scratched through the skin there, angry at himself for the lapse. Every time, every god damn time he forgot and then remembered, if felt like getting gutshot.

He climbed out of the bath. He toweled himself off roughly, ignoring the heavy, unsatisfied weight between his legs and stalked back into the bedroom.

He sat at the table, naked and damp, and started cleaning his gun. He made himself slow down, made his hands steady out while he carefully handled each tool and piece. It took a few minutes for his bleary eyes to clear and his breathing to level out.

He could do this.

He steered his mind away from thoughts of tracking Thor down, grabbing hold of that invisible chain and pulling himself into Loki's prison. He did not think about how good it would feel to slam the heel of his hand into the trickster's nose and drive bone shards up into that poisonous brain. It wouldn't make Phil any less dead. It wouldn't make Clint feel any better.

He couldn't quite make himself believe that.

Perhaps a half an hour later, there was a knock on his door and Clint blinked, realizing he'd been staring into space for at least ten minutes.

He hastily reassembled his gun and moved to open the door. He stopped, remembering he was naked.

"Just a minute!" He called, set the gun back down and started squirming his way back into his pants.

The door opened and Gretel stepped inside. Clint identified her and then hastily spun around, figuring showing her his ass was at least slightly more acceptable than full frontal nudity. He finished jerking his pants up and glared at her.

"Like I haven't seen it before," She rolled her eyes and walked into his room, throwing herself belly-first onto the furs on his bed. She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, booted feet dangling off the side. Her hair was a wet tangle at her back.

"Was there something I could do for you?" He asked.

"Tell me about this place." She said simply. "These people. How do you know Thor?"

Clint shrugged on his vest and sat next to her on the bed. He ran his fingers through his hair and shrugged.

"We're on Asgard. It's a different planet. According to the Asgardians, there are connections between certain worlds. Asgard, Thor's world, and Midgard, my world, are connected. Thor's father, Odin, is the king of Asgard. Thor's adopted brother, Loki, is a psychotic, murderous asshole. Are you following me so far?"

He lay back on the bed beside her. He suspected it was a feather mattress, and the fur throws were ridiculously soft. A stray tendril of Gretel's hair wet his shoulder.

In his periphery, Gretel nodded.

"A while back, Loki got an army and tried to enslave Midgard. We – being myself, Thor, and the team of superheroes I mentioned earlier – stopped him. Thor took Loki back to Asgard and we haven't seen or heard from them since."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Gretel put a hand in his hair and started to pet him.

It was something Nat would do. Clint felt a pang of homesickness lance through him.

"I'm sorry, you know." Gretel said quietly, fingertips playing with the shell of his ear.

Clint turned his head towards her, eyebrow raised in question.

"Amora. From the sound of things, she had no real interest in anything besides finding Loki. This, what she did to you… I don't think she'd have done it if Hansel hadn't attacked her. If _we_ hadn't attacked her."

"It's not your fault."

"No." Gretel agreed easily. "But still. I'm sorry."

Clint let his head fall back.

"I'm sorry too." He said softly. "I should be handling this better."

Gretel snorted.

"When Ben and Edward switched, it took ten minutes for Ben-the-troll to stop screaming." She smiled broadly. "And Edward-the-human wouldn't stop staring at his hands for a lot longer. Hansel tried to console Ben by saying at least he hadn't been switched with me. I had to smack the both of them – Hansel for saying it and Ben because he wouldn't stop staring at my chest after that. Getting ogled by a troll?" She mock shivered, and Clint felt himself smiling, imagining it.

There was a booming knock on the door.

Clint rolled himself out of bed and grabbed his gun from the table.

"It's open," He called.

"…Friend Hawkeye, I assure you it is not. I fear your affliction may have spread. Do you perceive the door as open?" Thor's voice called through, genuinely worried.

Clint set the gun back on the table and opened the door.

"It's a way of saying 'come in,' Thor." He explained, biting back a smile.

Thor still looked worried.

"What?" Clint asked sharply, flicking his eyes along the hallway behind him.

"It is not my intent to cause you alarm, but the Lady Gretel is – oh. Right there." Thor finished, taking her in.

Gretel waved, and Thor smiled at her. The chain at Thor's wrist started swaying and twitching again but Thor was clearly resolved to ignore it this time.

"Your handmaiden grew most distressed when she could not find you in quarters."

"I have a handmaiden?" Gretel's eyebrows rose.

"Sif sent her, believing you would wish some assistance with your hair?"

Gretel barked a laugh.

"That bitch." She said fondly.

Thor had the look about him of someone who was very carefully and deliberately not getting in the middle of it. Clint met his eyes and nodded slightly in firm agreement.

The feast hall was a happy chaos of people eating and talking. Clint knew if he hadn't walked in with Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three, he would have been able to slip into the crowd completely unnoticed.

As it was, he drew curious eyes like a magnet as people turned their heads to get a look at their prince's otherworldly companions. The attention itched against his skin, jarring badly against the parts of his brain that identified shadow corners and optimal sniping positions.

Gretel's hair had been sculpted into a complicated pattern of braids, dotted with small white flowers and hanging down between her shoulder blades. Clint thought it made a nice counter-point to the crossbow.

It put him in mind of when Natasha wore something soft and feminine for an op. He thought about seeing her with a floral-print skirt rucked up so she could choke someone with her thighs.

What a way to go, he thought, and his lips twitched in private amusement.

At the end of the hall, there was a dais set with a long table and seated in the middle Clint spied what could only be Thor's parents.

In a matronly way, Frigga was beautiful. Her yellow hair spilled over her shoulders from the coils gathered on top of her head. She didn't wear a crown but the neck of her dress glimmered with precious stones.

Odin drew Clint's eyes far more.

Odin watched them approach with a calculating stare, holding himself with a powerful, superior confidence.

Maybe it was the eye patch but Clint couldn't help drawing a parallel to Fury.

Although, he thought about Fury when Loki had first come through the portal. He'd taken seconds to assess the situation and commit to a suicide play. He'd weighed the harm that Loki evidenced against the worth of his own life and done what he'd felt needed to be done.

Clint looked at Odin and was somehow certain that this man, this… god, king, whatever, wouldn't have had the balls to do the same.

When they were before the dais, Clint followed Thor's lead and bent his head respectfully, letting himself fall into the mindset of an op. He would represent himself as Thor's comrade-in-arms, as a warrior of Midgard and as a supplicant for Frigga's help, and he would damn well keep the fact that Odin made his skin crawl to himself.

Odin rose, and following Thor's lead, Clint raised his head.

"Hail, Clint Barton of Midgard, named Hawkeye and proven ally to my son. News of your troubles has reached us. I offer you the aid of Asgard."

"Thank you," Clint replied after a beat when it became clear Odin was expecting an answer. Odin's eye moved to take in Gretel.

"This is the Lady Gretel," Thor held out a hand to indicate her. "She is the sister and protectorate of Hawkeye's inhabited form."

"You are welcome here, Lady Gretel," Odin said, inclining his head regally.

"Join us," Frigga said, waving a hand to the seats beside them.

The table was heavy with food, and soon Clint found himself sitting beside Thor (whom himself sat beside Odin) staring at a plate heaped with things that smelled amazing. He shifted his gun against his back to get more comfortable. Around them, the noise of the room rose back to what it had been before they'd entered.

Clint took a hunk of bread and stuffed it with a juicy slice of boar.

It was freaking delicious.

Fandral, beside him, laughed with surprised pleasure.

"I like this idea of yours," He told Clint, and split and folded a piece of meat into his own bread.

Clint blinked.

"Did I just invent the sandwich for you?" He asked.

Thor chuckled into his wine cup at that, so perhaps not.

At the lower tables, someone called for a tale. There was an enthusiastic chorus of agreement.

Thor clapped him on the shoulder.

"Would you favor us?" He asked, eyes crinkled with humor.

"Uhh…" Clint hedged, seeing at least three dozen people looking at him expectantly.

"I'm not really much for storytelling, Thor." He gave Thor an apologetic look.

"Nonsense," Thor insisted, smiling. "Your skill with a bow is unparalleled, friend."

Clint frowned when Thor didn't go on.

"The two aren't mutually inclusive," He said dryly. Thor tipped his head like a confused puppy, though whether it was at the concept or the term 'mutually inclusive,' Clint didn't know.

"I've got a story I can share," Gretel called from beside Frigga. A cheer went up from the tables.

Clint shot her a grateful look and she winked at him.

"This happened about three months ago," She said. "My brother and I are witch hunters by trade, and we were hired to investigate a string of children's disappearances in a town called Augsburg…"

Clint listened while Gretel told the story, honestly getting into it after a while. She was good at this, and it kept the attention off of himself.

The Asgardians listened attentively, laughing and booing in all the right places. When she told them about being captured and tied to a rock for the Sabbath, she rolled her eyes and let her tone dip into good-humored self-mockery.

She brought it back a moment later when she started describing the massive amounts of ass-kickery she and her brother had dispatched.

When she finished the story, she sketched a little bow to a roaring applause.

"A toast," A heavily bearded man at the end of a table called, holding his mug up, "To the noble witch Mina, who fell in battle. She surely rests in Valhalla."

Gretel raised her cup solemnly in answer, and Clint noticed that her eyes were suspiciously shiny when the assembled hall did the same.

Clint imagined Phil seated in the feast hall in that Viking version of heaven, still wearing his suit, quaffing beer and trading stories with the other dead warriors.

He raised his glass high, and drank until it was empty.

**Chapter 18**

After they'd eaten – and watching Tony puppy-eye his way into delaying Pepper the ten minutes it takes him to scarf down a surprising amount of food is something Hansel won't forget soon – Bruce tried to lead him upstairs.

Hansel got distracted by the little machine that wheeled in and started collecting plates from the table. It looked like a slimmer version of Dum-E.

Steve tried to grab plates before it reached them and it responded by beeping at him angrily and running into his toes.

"You know, the more you fight it, the more Tony'll program it to work around you." Bruce pointed out, smiling.

"I can clean up my own dishes," Steve protested, and while he was distracted the robot tugged the plate out of his hand with a victorious chirp.

Steve sighed. He waved his hands in defeat and the machine rotated its grasping arm in what Hansel interpreted as pleasure.

"It's that he programmed them to be smug when they best you; that's definitely my favorite part." Bruce grinned.

Steve gave him a flat look, then dropped his eyes back to the still partially full platter of eggs.

"Did Natasha say when she'd be back?"

Hansel shook his head.

"Just that she was going to SHIELD to unbrief." He said. Steve wrinkled his forehead.

"Debrief?" He asked.

"Right, yes, that." Hansel kept his eyes on the machine and fought to keep a casual air. He didn't think Bruce or Steve had any idea what had had transpired between him and Natasha and, if Tony's reaction was anything to go by, he thought they probably wouldn't approve if they did know.

He'd given a short reply when Steve had asked if he knew where she was. The less he said, the less chance something would slip out.

He didn't want to get Natasha into any trouble.

"The GPS chip in Agent Romanov's vehicle has shown no movement since reaching SHIELD's headquarters." Jarvis said.

"What's a GPS chip?" Hansel asked Steve.

"It's like a little computer that tells other computers where something is." Bruce told him, and they started walking back to the elevator. Steve followed.

"Okay," Hansel said, "I keep getting distracted from this, but what's a computer?"

"A headache in a box." Steve muttered. Bruce's lips twitched. There was a disembodied, pointed cough, and the elevator slowed to a stop between two floors.

"Except for Jarvis, who is a marvel of modern technology," Steve added quickly, and the elevator started moving again.

"You're too kind, sir," Jarvis said dryly.

"Tell you what," Bruce said, still grinning as they excited, "Once we've got you settled in the scanner, I'll see about getting you that tablet."

Hansel frowned.

"Is that like a computer?"

"It is a computer," Bruce assured him.

"Like a GPS?"

"A tablet can do more. A GPS is really just for finding things."

The room they walked into looked a lot like the one Hansel had first woken up in, all white walls and floor and lighting.

There were syringes in clear wrappings in a bin on one of the counters. Hansel eyed them with resignation, but Bruce walked right past them and further into the room, towards a floor-to-ceiling machine with a narrow table jutting out from a hole in the middle.

"This is a brain imager," Bruce explained. "Go ahead and lie down."

Hansel did, and Bruce's hands gently guided the back of his head into the support.

"Should I know why Stark has a brain imager?" Steve asked. "There isn't another palladium situation, is there?"

"It's for me, actually, for..." Bruce made a facial gesture that told Hansel nothing, but understanding washed across Steve's face.

Hansel narrowed his eyes but decided not to ask. Bruce didn't seem to want to talk about it.

Still. He thought it was probably related to whatever had frightened the food delivery guy.

"The table is going to retract into this space," Bruce continued, and patted the round opening behind his head. "Try not to move after that. It should only take about five minutes. You good?"

"Is it going to hurt?" He asked, eying the smooth walls of the machine warily.

"Nope."

"Then.. yeah, we're good." He agreed.

"Okay," Bruce pushed a few buttons. "Jarvis, can you keep an eye on this? Also, where can I find a spare tablet?"

The table started retracting and Hansel made himself relax.

"Progress is .5% complete. I will continue to monitor. As for the tablet, I believe Captain Rogers has left his behind the couch on the sixty-second floor again."

Bruce gave Steve an amused look.

"I didn't lose it." Steve insisted. "That's exactly where I left it."

"Of course. Well, I'll be right back."

"I can go get it," Steve offered, but Bruce waved a dismissive hand and left Hansel's field of vision.

The machine hummed around him.

"How much longer?" He asked.

"It's only been twenty-six seconds, sir. And please refrain from speaking while the imager is operating." Jarvis chided gently.

Steve pulled up a chair and sat beside him.

A moment passed in comfortable silence.

"I don't know if anyone thought to mention this, but I'm actually not from here either." Steve said quietly. Hansel dared to twitch a curious eyebrow, and Steve smiled at him.

"I'm not from another world, but," He breathed a laugh through his nose, "I might as well have been. This place was very different seventy years ago. The technology, the machines... all of that happened pretty recently."

He took in Hansel's expression and continued.

"I was fighting in a war, and I had to crash my plane in the ocean."

Hansel squinted.

"Oh! Uh, my aircraft? Flying machine."

Hansel twitched his eyebrows in understanding.

Steve settled back in the chair.

"I was frozen in ice for seventy years. By the time I was found, everything had changed."

He regarded Hansel.

"I'm very impressed with you, you know. Some of the things you're dealing with... you're dealing with a lot better than I did."

He smiled at Hansel, but it turned a little sad around the edges.

"I'm going to do everything I can to get you home. I promise."

Hansel gave him a look that he hoped conveyed his gratitude, his sympathy.

Bruce came back after another minute of companionable silence.

"Scan is 90% complete, Doctor Banner." Jarvis said.

"Thanks."

Bruce was holding a flat device, maybe twice the width and length of his hand.

He leaned against the wall beside the machine and started tapping at what Hansel assumed was the tablet.

Steve craned his head to look at what he was doing.

The device started making quiet cheeping, squawking noises like it contained a flock of angry birds.

"Seriously?" Steve asked.

Bruce shrugged.

"The scan has been completed," Jarvis said.

The table slid out and Hansel sat up.

"Thanks, Jarvis. Go ahead and send the display to-"

"Sirs," Jarvis interrupted, tone mildly alarmed. "I'm detecting an intruder on-" Jarvis's voice cut away, cracking and breaking before falling silent.

They exchanged glances, and Steve started running for the door to the stairwell.

It opened before he got there, and Nick Fury walked through, carrying a large black case.

"Stand down, soldier."

"Sir." Steve acknowledged. He didn't stop looking tense.

Hansel hopped off the table, wanting his feet under him.

Fury walked into the room and set the case on the table.

"Officially, I wasn't here. Officially, I absolutely did not just give you that. I expect it to be returned in one piece. Do we have an understanding?"

Bruce eyed the case.

"There's not a trombone in there, is there." He said dryly.

Fury gave him a level, unblinking stare.

Bruce coughed and rubbed the back of his neck.

Fury turned his back to them and snapped open the side of the case.

Hansel bent to look around his shoulder.

It looked like a golden spear, sort of. It was thicker at one end, and glowed with what Hansel thought was more electric lighting.

Fury met his curious gaze.

"Word of advice? Don't touch the pointy end." He said darkly. Fury looked at Bruce.

"Let me know immediately if there's anything SHIELD can do to help you. I need my asset back. His absence didn't go unnoticed in that last skirmish."

Bruce nodded, and Steve looked grim.

Hansel remembered Fury's threat to leave him tied to a bed and drugged if he didn't cooperate in hiding the fact that he wasn't Clint Barton.

He met Fury's gaze and felt a little thread of fear shiver up his spine.

Fury turned and stalked to the exit.

"And one more thing," Fury said, pausing with his hand on the door. "You can tell Stark that if I catch his fingers in my cookie jar again, I'll hit the kill switch for his suit during a press conference."

The door closed behind him with a sharp click.

Steve and Bruce exchanged a glance, and then they both looked at the spear.

Hansel walked over and took a better look at the thing.

"Huh. It's kinda like an oversized wand, isn't it?" He observed.

Steve tilted his head, considering. "You're not wrong." He said, nodding.

"-Level fifty." Jarvis cracked.

"Jarvis, are you okay?" Hansel asked, concerned.

There was a moment, and then Jarvis sighed.

"I hate it when Director Fury does that." Jarvis confided.

"This happens a lot?" Hansel asked.

"Twice is plenty, sir." Jarvis said, in an undertone that promised future violence.

"Well then," Bruce said, voice full of false cheer. "Staying out of that one." He waved a hand at the spear/wand thing. "Let's get started."

**Chapter 19**

Midway through the feast, Frigga had met his eye and gracefully risen from her seat. Everyone (save Volstagg and, unexpectedly, Gretel) had finished eating by then - at least at the... Clint wasn't sure what to call it- royal table? God, that sounded pompous.

Frigga's study was golden in the way everything on Asgard seemed to be, and soft in a way Clint had a hard time quantifying. There was a calm to the place that wasn't entirely natural; a warmth that didn't just come from the fireplace.

He felt his shoulders relaxing without any real cause, and, instantly wary, slipped his hand down to the knife he'd lifted from Fandral earlier.

"Be at ease," Frigga said, smiling at him. "And give that back. You're worse than-" She stopped, and the smile faded.

She dropped her eyes, turned, and walked further into the room.

Clint silently handed the knife back to Fandral. The man's eyebrows darted upwards in an almost comical mask of surprise.

Clint walked after Frigga. Sif and the Warriors Three seemed content to linger by the door, but Gretel and Thor flanked him. Odin had taken a seat in front of what Clint assumed was a tapestry of Yggdrisil.

"My lady mother," Thor said, voice gentle in a way Clint had never heard it before.

Frigga turned, face a regal mask once more. She looked from Thor to Clint.

"Yes, well." She said, businesslike. She stepped into his space. Clint held himself rigid and fought the urge to step back.

"Close your eyes," She said, bringing her hands up. She hovered them, palm up, around his chin until he did as she asked, and then she lightly cupped his face.

Frigga's hands were warm and dry. He could feel curious eyes on him from the other people in the room. He was aware of the way Frigga smelled, her perfume something light that reminded him of apples. She kind of smelled like Amora, actually. He took a breath to break the silence, make a joke, ask her if they shopped together, but it caught in his throat as a wave of fatigue washed over him.

He felt heat spreading out from Frigga's hands and slide through his skin into his skull, into his brain. He squirmed but couldn't seem to find his legs, couldn't coordinate himself enough to take a step backwards.

He whimpered, panic welling up in him but muted, fuzzy and unreachable.

"What are you doing to him?" Gretel demanded, sounding distant and vague.

Frigga's hands withdrew.

The world snapped back sharply and Clint stumbled backwards, choking as the taste of bile rose in his throat as his panic caught up. His knees wavered but Thor was there, solid and known, holding him with large, firm hands at his elbow and the small of his back.

"Breathe, Clint Barton." Thor said softly.

"Are you alright?" Gretel asked, appearing in his line of sight. She looked furious, wheeling on Frigga before Clint could answer.

"He is fine. I merely needed to see." Frigga soothed.

Clint steadied himself, nodding a thanks to Thor.

"I'm okay." He assured Gretel.

Frigga took a step towards him again and, suddenly, and with a surprising amount of strength, slammed the heel of her hand into his forehead.

"Mother!" Thor barked.

Clint grabbed his head, abruptly remembering that appearance of an older woman or no, Frigga was an Asgardian and as such packed a wallop.

"What the fuck, lady?" He yelled, rubbing the spot she'd struck.

"Hmmm," Frigga murmured, peering into his eyes intently. "No," She said after a moment. "I had not thought so. Still, better to be sure. All is well, child." She said this last to Gretel.

Hogun had his hand wrapped firmly around Gretel's wrist. Clint realized he was stopping her from going for her crossbow.

Odin waved for Hogun to release Gretel with only a mildly chastising look her way. Clint counted his blessings there.

"What have you seen?" Odin asked his wife.

Frigga smoothed the front of her dress.

"I'll need the other. This is complicated magic and the distance between their minds makes unraveling it that much more difficult."

Odin considered this, then nodded.

"Very well. Thor, you have my leave to take the tesseract and retrieve his form from Midgard. We shall see your ally set to rights."

Thor bowed solemnly, but was grinning when he rose. He clapped Clint on the shoulder with enough force that his knees threaten to buckle.

"I shall return soon." He beamed.

Fandral and Volstagg detached themselves from the door and followed him out.

"Now, for the rest," Frigga said after they had closed the door. She walked to a low table and plucked a yellow apple from the bowl there. "There is an old poison rooted in you." She continued. She tossed the apple to him and Clint easily caught it.

"Take a bite," She said.

Clint gave her a look that he hoped didn't come across as rude.

"You know, on Midgard we have stories about what a bad idea it is to eat apples that come from..." Was 'witch' a pejorative? "...Magic...users." He finished awkwardly.

Frigga smiled, amusement glittering in her eyes.

"That is one of Idunn's apples. The poison, it started in your stomach, yes?"

"Yes," Gretel answered. It was almost painful, how obvious her hope was. "When we were children, a witch made him eat candy. He's been sick since."

Frigga nodded.

"Power is easily channeled through crystals. Sugar is a natural conduit. Take a bite," She told Clint. "This must heal from the inside."

"I thought this was diabetes?" Clint felt his brow furrowing. He held the apple warily.

"I do not know that ailment." Frigga said, frowning.

"It's," Clint coughed awkwardly, trying to summon up the details. "When your body isn't producing enough insulin to drop your blood sugar to a healthy level? I think? You have to take insu- wait, what have I been injecting myself with then?" He fumbled for the syringe and eyed the clear contents of the vial.

"It's blessed water." Gretel said. She looked worried. "What's insulin?"

"It's… made by your pancreas?" Clint hazarded a guess.

Gretel squinted at him.

"I don't know, okay? I've never had diabetes before."

"And still don't, apparently." Frigga said simply.

Clint blinked at her.

Frigga dropped her eyes pointedly to the apple in Clint's hand, then raised them to give him a challenging look.

Clint brought the apple up to his mouth and, tentatively, took a bite.

The sharp taste of it rolled across his tongue and made his mouth water almost painfully quickly. He felt every millimeter of his throat when he swallowed, the pulp rubbing wet and warm along his insides.

He took another bite.

"Ah ah," Frigga said, and plucked the apple from his hand. "Too much of a good thing," She warned.

Clint chewed and swallowed that mouthful. He looked at the apple longingly, but Frigga set it firmly down on the table.

She poured a cup of what Clint thought was water and handed it to him.

He was really thirsty, now that he thought about it. He drank.

Frigga took a step into his space and brought a hand up.

Clint expected her to put it against his face again, but she gave him a soothing look, said "This may be a bit uncomfortable," and put her hand directly into his chest. It passed into him smoothly, as though Clint wasn't there.

Clint gasped and dropped the cup. He stared dumbly down at where Frigga's wrist disappeared inside his chest. She dragged the hand downward and Clint felt… not pain, but a shifting inside. A squirming, scraping sensation that, while it didn't actually hurt felt uncomfortable as hell. He didn't dare move – too much experience with impalement injuries made holding still an instinctive response.

Still, he was about to protest when Frigga pulled her arm out, hand clean but cupped as if she were holding something.

She walked over to the fireplace and tipped the contents of her hand in. The silvery white powder hit the flames with a crackle, turning the light green for a long moment before it reverted back to its normal cheery orange.

Clint stared.

Frigga dusted her hands off.

"That should do it. The magics of that realm are refreshingly simple." She mused.

"He's cured?" Gretel asked.

"Well, his mind is still not his own, but his body is no longer being weakened by malevolent magic. He no longer has need for the blessed wa-" Frigga's words cut off in a grunt as Gretel seized her in a fierce hug.

Frigga raised a tender hand and stroked it down Gretel's elaborate hair. Clint watched, fascinated, as the drooping little white flowers in Gretel's braids perk up as Frigga's fingers brushed over them.

"This has been a burden to you for a long time, child, I know." Frigga said gently.

Gretel released her, palming her eyes self-consciously.

"Thank you." She said. She floundered, embarrassed by her reaction, and covered by bending to pick up the cup Clint and dropped and returning it to the table.

"I don't understand, though." Gretel said, "We're immune to spells."

Frigga looked from her to Clint pointedly. "Not all spells. And this was magic he took into himself willingly."

"There wasn't any 'willing' about it." Gretel insisted.

"No?" Frigga arched an eyebrow.

Gretel swallowed whatever she'd been about to say.

She looked at Clint, and there was a flicker of guilt in her eyes.

"Choices, even difficult, ugly ones, are still choices." Frigga said gently, glancing towards Odin for a moment.

Gretel nodded, jaw firming. She looked at Frigga with gratitude clear in her eyes.

"Hogun, Sif," Odin said. "See our guests to their quarters. The day has been a long and trying one."

They bowed slightly in acknowledgement. Gretel turned to follow them but Clint hesitated.

"Thank you," He told Frigga. "I'm sorry for …" He wasn't sure saying 'acting like a distrustful dick' was an appropriate thing to say to a queen.

She smiled knowingly and nodded, accepting his disjointed apology gracefully.

He bowed briefly to Odin, not wanting to rock the boat when it was so easily avoided, then took the dismissal for what it was and followed the others out.

Gretel clutched his hand once the door was closed. Clint let her.

She turned his wrist over and unsnapped the buckles holding the alarm in place. The skin revealed beneath was noticeably paler than the skin around it.

She ran her thumbs over the place and grinned up at him.

Clint allowed that maybe, _maybe_, on a probationary assessment, there was a possibility that not all magic sucked.

Chapter End Notes

Because 1) It didn't really act like diabetes and 2) I'm putting odds that healing water was more likely than insulin in terms of something-they'd-actually-be-carrying.

**Chapter 20**

Tony sat with his chin propped in his hand and stared in the general direction of the presenting board member.

His eyes started drifting shut against his best intentions and he flinched as a something sharp, polished and designed by Jimmy Choo dug into his shin.

He shot Pepper a grumpy look that she returned serenely, and then focused her attention pointedly back on the speaker.

God, Tony hated board meetings. Half of these people couldn't engineer their way out of a paper bag and a third of them were still bitter about not being in the weapons industry anymore.

"Sir," Jarvis said in his ear. Tony smiled into the hand holding up his chin. Stealth tech at his finest - the ear piece was invisible to an observer. "Doctor Banner and Captain Rogers are running a brain imaging test on our guest. Would you like me to suggest a radiation spectrum analysis that might also be relevant to their queries?"

Tony shook his head minutely. Not enough to get any attention – just enough for the sensors to pick up the movement.

Tony liked watching Bruce work.

"Very good, sir." Jarvis purred.

A minute passed. The speaker was one of those unbearable creatures that liked to imply Iron Man damaged Stark Tech sales without having a single damn number to back it up.

Tony shot Pepper a pleading look.

She tapped a brief bit of Morse code on the table: 20.

He dialed 'pleading' up to 'quietly desperate.' Twenty more minutes of this?

Pepper arched a challenging eyebrow.

Tony slumped back in his seat.

"It appears that Doctor Banner intends to educate our guest on the finer points of using ornithological projectiles as a means of demolishing precarious, pig-filled structures."

Tony bit his lip to keep from laughing at that.

"Sir," Jarvis snapped, tone shifting instantly from teasing to alarmed. "I've lost my connection with the Tower."

Tony pulled out his phone, ducking his feet out of Pepper's range and pulled up the Tower's security grid.

Something had disrupted it.

"Take five, ladies and gentlemen," Tony said, smoothly standing up.

"Mr. Stark, we're in the middle of the projection." The presenter objected.

"Yep, that's great." Tony nodded, not really listening.

"Miss Potts! Can you-"

"Let's take a break." Pepper said, standing herself. Tony did grin a bit at that, worry aside. The whole running-to-mommy thing emphatically did not work on Pepper. If anything, it made her that much faster to side with him.

Tony called Steve and got voice mail immediately.

"Charge your phone, you anachronism." He muttered.

Bruce was even worse than Steve in remembering to carry it, so he called Natasha, already jogging for the elevator.

"Stark," She answered shortly.

"Jarvis has lost contact with the Tower. The security grid has been compromised."

"I'm on my way." She said simply and hung up.

Tony spun the phone to give himself a better space to work on and tapped up the surveillance in the surrounding buildings, trying to get a better idea if he should skip the part where he retrieved the suit and got right to the bit where the suit retrieved him. It caused property damage and it would ruin his car, but if they needed him…

The cameras showed nothing out of place.

That didn't tell him as much as he'd like. If they were being attacked in one of the labs, external surveillance wouldn't do much.

He was about to activate the bracelets when Jarvis spoke up.

"I've reconnected with the Tower, sir."

"What happened?"

"Director Fury." Jarvis said. Tony hesitated, because he didn't remember programming that particular tone of murderous into his AI.

Then again, one of Jarvis' parameters was to learn from experience. Tony probably didn't have to worry about an uprising just yet.

Probably.

The elevator doors opened. Tony considered them, but turned back towards the board room. Better to get the meeting over with, and if there was an emergency, Jarvis would have told him already.

"What did Fury want?"

"It appears that he has delivered the staff Loki used during his invasion."

Tony grimaced.

"Which means he found my, ah, queries. Jarvis?"

"Already reviewing the code, sir."

"Great. What are we thinking in terms of retaliation for the black out?"

"Resetting Fury's wallpapers to the Iron Man cheerleaders and the helicarrier's speaker system to play the Imperial March whenever he enters a room."

Tony considered it.

"He might not actually mind that; the music, anyway." He pointed out.

Jarvis hummed.

"Perhaps 'The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything' instead, then." Jarvis said decisively.

"Have I told you lately that I love you?" Tony said while Pepper walked up.

She tilted her head, smiling, and then frowned.

"You're talking to Jarvis, aren't you?"

"My love is not a limited commodity." He said, aiming for diplomacy.

Pepper gave him a flat look.

Tony coughed.

"There was a break in at the Tower." He said. Pepper got an alarmed look about her so he quickly continued. "It was just Fury delivering something for a project we're working on, but he felt the need to disrupt Jarvis to do so."

"What are you working on that Fury would deliver something personally?" She asked curiously.

Tony waved a dismissive hand.

"We're trying to un-break science."

Pepper twisted her mouth.

"Is this related to magic?"

Tony mimed a cringing shudder.

"Uhh, even that _word_. And yes, maybe."

He put his phone back in his pocket, then looked at his empty hands in surprise.

"What happened to my coffee?" He asked.

Pepper rolled her eyes and turned back to the meeting room.

"Seriously. It was right here a second ago." He pointed at his hand and followed obediently.

Most of the board members hadn't even left the room. Tony's coffee was exactly where he left it but he ignored it completely. It had been unattended and drug him once, shame on you, drug him… he did a quick tally… four times, and that 30% rogue possibility that the SHIELD analysts liked to put in their reports of him started looking more likely.

Tony thumbed his goatee and briefly contemplated a life of super-villainy. He was pretty sure he could get Jarvis to go along with it, and that would be most of the battle for world domination done right there.

Pepper gave him a narrow-eyed look like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Tony dropped his hand innocently.

He settled back in his seat and waved for the presenter to continue.

The man scowled at him and started talking about meeting procedures and Tony made appropriate noises and nodded, not taking in a word of it.

He was sure he was forgetting something.

Oh, that was going to bother him.

The meeting moved on. The words 'conference call' popped up and Tony barely suppressed a smile. Jarvis and a voice modulator had been standing in for him for eight years now.

He was pretty sure Pepper was the only one who knew. And not because he'd told her; just because from what he gathered afterward, Jarvis actually seemed to listen and contribute.

Tony should really fix that code at some point.

The R&D representative took the floor and Tony actually did start paying attention then. The operational/marketing/financial aspects of Stark Industries didn't really interest him – the engineering parts, though? He loved flinging inventions at R&D and seeing them tweak them into something with mass appeal.

"Children's toys." The woman said. She reminded Tony strongly of Frau Blucher, and the incongruity of her stern appearance and the words that had just come out of her mouth made him raise an eyebrow in delighted curiosity.

"The personality module copied from the construct 'Dum-E' is of too limited cognitive and responsive functionality to be viable in a commercial or industrial setting. It would require expensive and lengthy alterations to the code for it to be useful as a robotic assistant." She said sternly. Tony wanted to defend Dum-E, but she wasn't done. "However, testing has suggested that the module could have applications where a high level of responsibility or intelligence is not required. Initial research indicates that the Dum-E personality module would be successfully marketable with a minimal robotic skeleton inside a stuffed animal."

"A Stark Tech teddy bear?" Tony asked.

Frau Blucher (Tony forgot her actual name) nodded sharply, mouth grim and body language stern.

"I love it. Excellent idea for branching out. Let's do it." Tony said, grinning.

The board immediately started harrumphing and asking for specifics that Tony knew R&D wouldn't have this early in testing. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he tuned them out again while he answered, ducking out of range again.

"Natasha. Knew I was forgetting something." He said.

There was a judgmental silence.

"Hey, blame your boss; he's the one who set off the alarms." Tony said defensively.

The silence stretched.

"I promise, next time an emergency gets canceled, you'll be the first person I tell." He added.

A moment. Tony checked the phone to make sure they were still connected.

"Did… you enjoy the motorcycle prototype?" He ventured.

"It shakes over ninety." Natasha said flatly.

Tony winced.

"Noted." He said.

There was a click of disconnection.

Tony pocketed the phone and turned to Pepper.

"Theoretically, if you'd annoyed an assassin, what would you do to make it up to them?" He asked.

Pepper gave him a fond, resigned look.

"Might try giving her a Stark Industries response to Teddy Ruxpin."

He snorted.

"And hey, if it glitches she'll be able to defend herself _and_ probably won't sue." Tony added cheerfully.

"Sir," Jarvis murmured in his ear. "Captain Rogers is attempting to show Hansel how to use the internet."

Tony resisted the urge to whine. He knew Jarvis would be recording it; he could watch it later.

Tony risked pulling his phone out again to type a quick command to his AI.

Make sure 'safe search' is off.

"Of course, sir." Jarvis assured him.

Tony settled back with a smile, and let the rest of the meeting wash over him.

When he got back to the Tower he went straight up to the lab.

Pepper had to go back to the office to talk to the corporate lawyers (Tony shuddered, but she assured him they weren't actually that bad) and would join him later.

Tony didn't push it like he would have ordinarily. Clint and Pepper had developed a rapport over the last couple of months. He wanted to avoid having to tell her that something had happened to the archer for as long as possible.

And hey – maybe they'd get it resolved before he had to.

Hope sprang eternal, after all.

Natasha regarded him with an arched eyebrow from her perch in the back of the room when he walked in.

Bruce had the stem of his glasses in his mouth and was obviously absorbed in the data scrolling over the monitor.

Hansel appeared to be playing Plants vs Zombies. Steve was giving him strategy advice.

"Moved on from Angry Birds?" Tony asked as he walked over.

Hansel beamed at him, and then went back to tapping up balls of sunlight.

Steve stood and pulled Tony aside, nodding to the staff.

"Fury dropped that off. He said to 'keep your fingers out of his cookie jar or he'd hit the kill switch on your suit during a press conference.'"

Tony snorted.

"He doesn't have a kill switch."

Steve gave him a lingering look.

"He doesn't." Tony insisted.

Steve walked them further away from the others.

"He also said that Barton's absence had been noticed. I'm worried. If we get another call in, I think we'll have to risk taking him with us. Fury... he was worried, too."

"Shit." Tony sighed. Steve gave him a look that didn't disagree.

Tony tipped his head and chewed his lip.

"Okay. Well, the bright side is that I have some ideas. More than that, I have a prototype. Hansel!" He called.

When he looked up Tony waved him over. Hansel let go of the tablet very reluctantly.

"I need you to test something." He said.

"Sure?" Hansel agreed tentatively.

"Tony, what?" Steve asked.

Tony scratched his beard.

"Well, okay, so I... might have made something that can be fitted to an arrow head that'll, ah, change the arrow's direction... to whatever the targeting system has selected."

Steve raised his eyebrows.

"Why didn't you mention this sooner?"

"I figured Clint would punch me if he knew." Tony shrugged. "It wasn't ever going to go into production, and it's not like I ever got it perfected – it was just something I was playing around with. But I thought it'd be better to keep it a secret and avoid offending Clint with their existence."

Steve's mouth twitched, amused.

"We should probably get Natasha in on this, too," Steve added. "She knows Clint's fighting style intimately. She can help him get his form closer to his."

Steve turned to beckon her over but she was standing right behind him.

"Whatever I can do to help." She said simply.

They took the elevator down.

Bruce took the glasses stem out of his mouth and hummed contemplatively.

"Well, that's…" He started, gesturing at the data he'd been studying.

He looked up and surveyed the empty lab.

He blinked in mild surprise.

"…Guys?"

No one answered.

After a moment, Bruce shrugged and went back to work.

**Chapter 21**

"That really doesn't feel right." Hansel insisted.

Natasha gave him an uncompromising stare.

"It's how he holds it."

He sighed and hiked his elbow back up.

He released, and the line snapped against his armguards. The arrow sailed across the room and Hansel thought he could see the little quill-like flaps ringing the arrowhead bristling a bit.

It hit the dummy's beltline.

Natasha tilted her head.

"Better," She reluctantly conceded. "Stark, I thought you said this thing had a targeting system?"

"Really? Because I remember saying I didn't get it perfected." Tony sniped back.

Tony had a wire running from one of the little quill-rings into his computer. The screen displayed a jumble of numbers that Hansel couldn't make any sense of. Tony seemed to be reading it fluently.

Steve followed his line of sight.

"It's nonsense to me, too." He confided.

"Again," Natasha schooled. She wrapped her fingers over his on the string and spaced them a bit differently than was natural for him.

Hansel lined up the shot, holding his arm at that impractical angle, and loosed the string.

It hit the wall beside the dummy with an ugly clatter.

"Again." Natasha said calmly. "Slow down. Feel the tension in your stomach, in your arms. Let it sit there. Hold it."

He drew the string back and held it.

"Barton breathes in before he opens his hand. Breathe in." She added quietly. "And let go."

Hansel took a breath.

The arrow landed with a satisfying 'thwack.'

"Well," Natasha said smugly, looking over her shoulder. "He's officially doing better without your tech than with it, Stark."

Tony looked up and scowled at the arrow sticking out of the dummy through what would have been its left collarbone.

"Jarvis." He said, picking an arrow up and placing it carefully into an articulated cradle of tools. "ETA for rendering?"

"Ninety seconds, sir."

The arrow was rotated, the head removed and the workshop filled with a high-pitched buzz as a narrow drill filed a hollow into the shaft and through the center of the arrowhead. Tony picked up a small flat square of something vaguely green and metallic looking with a narrow pair of tweezers. He fitted it carefully into the shaft and stepped back.

The cradle of tools fitted the quill-ring back on and threaded a little wire through the hollows in the shaft and arrowhead. There was a brief hiss and flare of orange as the arrow spun through a quick solder.

Hansel was almost sick with envy.

The tools retracted back, leaving the arrow cooling in the cradle.

Tony gave it a moment then picked it up and wiggled his fingers for the bow.

Hansel handed it over. Tony lined up a shot.

He drew the string back confidently -

"You might want to-" Natasha started

- and released the arrow.

"-put the bracer on." Hansel finished, and met Natasha's eyes, grinning.

Tony rubbed his stung wrist.

"Owwwwwwww." He whined.

"Walk it off, Stark." Steve said.

"Oh, you walk it off," He growled, and waved a hand at the dummy.

The arrow jutted from the middle of the dummy's face.

Natasha grunted in surprise.

Tony handed Hansel the bow and walked across the room to retrieve the arrow.

"I had to make room to fit in a chip, modified off of the suit's shoulder guns. There's a sensor running to the arrow tip. This isn't connected to Jarvis – there just isn't a way to do that without weighing the arrow down. The targeting I was able to rig up is… limited. It can identify kill zones but not friendlies, so hooo my god be careful where you point it. I wouldn't recommend trying anything beyond eighty yards."

He tugged the arrow out of the dummy and carefully examined the tip.

He hissed in displeasure.

"One time use only, unless we're fighting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man or similar. Jarvis." He called.

"I've started production in workshop 4, sir."

"Sweet."

Hansel frowned, but he took the meaning to be 'good.'

Tony leveled a stern look at the three of them.

"I'm serious. You do not ever tell Clint these are a thing that exists. As much as it pains me to admit limitations on my tech, these," He waved the arrow, "Can't do what he does. I think he'd still take it personally, though."

Steve nodded. "He won't hear it from me."

Natasha gave Tony an inscrutable look, but tilted her head in agreement.

Tony looked a Hansel expectantly.

"Oh," Hansel blinked. "I… don't know when you think I'd have the opportunity but, yes, I promise. I won't mention it."

"Come," Natasha said. "We need to train some more. Regular arrows will do for this." She put her fingers on his elbow, guiding his bow hand back into place.

Hansel pulled an arrow smoothly from the quiver at his back and nocked it. Natasha tipped his elbow up a bit more.

"Jarvis," Tony said, watching them. "Can we isolate some footage of Hawkeye? A visual aid might be useful here."

"Of course, sir."

Tony swiveled the screen with the strings of numbers on it towards them.

The number disappeared and Hansel found himself looking at… himself.

At Clint Barton.

Hansel lowered the bow and stepped forward. He pressed his fingers to the screen, entranced. The colorful games Bruce and Steve had introduced him to had brought him up to speed on the concept of projected images. It was amazing what technology could do.

Clint was on a rooftop, standing near the edge without seeming to be aware of the drop inches from his feet. He drew and loosed arrows fluidly, each one finding its mark on the… Hansel tilted his head at the flying, monstrous things. They looked a bit like bog witches.

On the screen, Clint turned his head, talking to someone Hansel didn't see. He fired another arrow without looking. It hit the chariot/broom thing the creature was flying and exploded.

Hansel was speechless.

Natasha had told him that Clint's aim was unparalleled but everyone had a habit of speaking well of the people they loved.

She had not been exaggerating, though.

He watched Clint's efficiency and deadly grace when he'd fired his last arrow and had to move to hand-to-hand to fight the creatures.

Assassin. He really was an assassin.

Hansel looked at his borrowed, calloused, scarred hands and back at the screen.

Clint threw himself backwards off of the roof. Hansel choked, blood running cold at even the idea of it.

"This is who I'm going to have to pretend to be?" He asked, incredulous. Clint fired an arrow that grabbed the ledge and swung himself from the attached rope through one of the building's windows.

"We'll fill you up with Dramamine or something if we get called in." Tony said easily. "Things have been reasonably quiet, lately, so I don't-"

The lights in the workshop flickered red.

"Sir, incoming call from SHIELD."

Everyone looked at Tony.

He gave them a sheepish look.

Steve took a step forward, sighed, and smacked Tony on the back of the head.

"Shall I send the call to the workshop, sir?" Jarvis asked, amusement in his voice.

Tony rubbed his head.

"I see how it is, J. And yeah, go for it."

The monitor flickered and a brunette woman's face filled the screen.

"Deputy Hill," Steve said, voice and body language dropping into something confident and commanding.

"Captain. Amora's been sighted in Brooklyn." Her eyes flickered across the screen. "Agent, are you able to report for duty?"

Hansel twitched slightly when Natasha's toe dug into the side of his foot.

"Me, right, yes." He said.

Hill raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, I'm able to report for duty." He said firmly, trying to smooth over his mistake.

She hesitated, then nodded in acceptance.

"I'm uploading the coordinates to the quinjet. Hurry. SHIELD has the area evacuated - she's not exhibiting hostile behavior but she does have a creature with her that attracted a lot of attention."

"Understood." Steve said grimly.

The image disappeared.

"Jarvis, let Banner know to meet us on the roof."

"Already done, sir."

Natasha took a hold of his wrist and maneuvered him out of the room.

"You need your uniform," She said.

Hansel kept his eyes on the bright white star in the middle of the shield on Steve's back. If he kept his eyes locked there, he could ignore the fact that he was walking across a rooftop seventy-some stories in the air.

He walked into the machine with a sigh of relief, letting the metal walls block the view from sight.

"You're in the cockpit, big guy." Tony said, waving a metal hand towards the front.

Natasha walked past him and into the divided front part. Hansel looked out of the enormous windows and swallowed hard.

He took the seat beside Natasha and, watching her, buckled himself into place. It's like a car, he thought. Just a big car with a lot more buttons.

He looked at the display in front of him.

Natasha put her hands on the wheel in front of her and he did the same.

She smiled at him and shook her head.

He let his hands fall back to his lap.

She pressed some buttons and the machine started vibrating around him, under him.

He clenched his fingers into the straps when the ground started falling away.

"You know, I get pulled along by brooms with a regrettable amount of frequency. It never doesn't suck, but this is just, this is." He knew he was babbling. "It's altogether not the same."

"Relax," Natasha suggested.

He snorted a laugh and closed his eyes.

No, that was worse. He opened them again. He looked back into the body of the quinjet and glanced at the others – Steve in his bright blue, white and red uniform, Tony in the Iron Man suit, Bruce in… exactly what he'd been wearing in the lab.

"You don't have a uniform?" He asked.

Bruce ran a hand through his hair and gave him a rueful smile.

"It's difficult finding things in my size." He said.

Hansel tipped his head in confusion.

"I did find something interesting in the tests we did earlier," Bruce said, changing the subject.

"Go on," Tony asked.

"There's an energy signature match between Loki's staff and," Bruce waved a hand at him. "It's faint, but it's there. We should be able to expand on that."

"Awesome," Tony said cheerfully.

"We're touching down in two." Natasha called over her shoulder. Hansel looked back out the window and was stunned anew by the speed the buildings below zoomed past.

He pressed his head against the headrest and locked his eyes on the ceiling.

"You've only got five of those arrows, Hansel," Tony said, voice turning serious. "If this gets hairy, use them carefully. Try to hold off shooting unless you have to. A significant part of what Hawkeye does is advising us from the, pun intended, bird's-eye view he's rocking, so just put on your game face and stare over the ledge as much as possible."

Hansel's stomach made a sickly lurch. He nodded firmly, steeling himself. This was going to suck.

"Tony," Steve said. "Stick as close to him as you can. If anything goes wrong," He said to Hansel, "Tony'll be able to fly you out to safety. Doctor Banner, when we touch down, go with him. If we need the Other Guy, he can join us from the roof as easily as the street."

Both men made acquiescing noises.

"We're coming in for landing." Natasha said.

Hansel turned back around and watched the ground rise up to meet them.

The machine settled with a slight bump, and then fell still.

He fumbled with the belts for a moment, then followed the others out. They were on a wide, square patch of black ground with cars parked between white lines.

"Brace yourselves," Tony's mechanical voice warned. A metal hand scooped him firmly around his waist and Hansel felt the ground rip away abruptly.

Bruce, in Tony's other arm, made a distressed noise that Tony ignored. A moment later he set them down on a rooftop.

"A little more warning, next time." Bruce reprimanded, somewhat breathlessly.

Tony touched two metal fingers to his forehead and flew off, presumably to rejoin the others.

The building was maybe half the height of the Tower. Tony and Steve in their bright colors were very eye-catching and easily recognizable.

Glancing over the edge still made his skin prickle coldly but he thought he could do this. He watched them approach Amora. She was sitting on a bench, stroking the bristling purple fur of what looked like an overgrown dog.

"How are you holding up?" Bruce asked, walking up beside him.

Hansel gripped the bow firmly and drew an arrow out; nocking it and holding it in a ready line pointed towards Amora.

"Queasy," He answered honestly. "But dealing with it. This isn't as tall as the tower. It's not… as much." He finished awkwardly.

Below them, he watched Tony wave a metal hand, obviously talking.

Amora threw her head back in laughter.

Steve approached, hands out, making himself appear non-threatening.

In the corner of his eye, he saw the slinky black form of Natasha sidling up behind Amora.

The purple dog-thing pressed its fanged head against Amora's thigh. She stroked its ears and turned to look directly at Natasha.

"Oh balls." Bruce said.

Natasha's arm flashed out, throwing something at Amora.

The enchantress disappeared and reappeared behind her. Tony shot a line of light from his hand, knocking her back.

The purple beast dove for him, locking its massive jaws around his metal arm.

Hansel watched, arrow pulled back and ready but he didn't dare let it go. Everyone was moving around too quickly – he didn't like his odds of hitting one of them.

Amora stepped up on nothing, walking into the air like she was climbing invisible stairs. She bent her body backwards, smoothly dodging the shield Steve threw at her.

She raised her hands, and pools of green mist formed on the street.

Hansel watched as large, clawed paws appeared from the pools. They braced against the street and two creatures the size of cottages climbed out.

One of them coughed out a burst of flame. A nearby car noticeably melted a bit.

Bruce touched his ear.

"I figured. On my way down."

Hansel turned his head, alarmed, as Bruce took off his shoes and stepped up on the ledge.

"Watch those for me, would you?" Bruce said, smiling at the wide-eyed look Hansel gave him.

Bruce stepped off the ledge.

Hansel yelled in panic and scrambled to grab him, knowing before he even moved that he'd be too late.

Bruce… bulged as he dropped. His clothes split and his exposed skin turned green.

He hit the ground with enough force to dent the street.

Hansel stared, amazed, heart beating frantically in his throat. Bruce roared. He smacked a fist into the melted car, spinning it out of the way.

Bruce was a troll.

Well shit. That explained a lot. This world must have grand trolls the way his world had grand witches - powerful magic creatures that could look like regular people when they wanted to.

Hansel grinned, watching Bruce tackle the beast with thick hands wrapped around its horns and twist its face down to the street.

Tony was flying around the second creature's head, blasting it and working it into a confused rage.

Natasha had her body wrapped around the purple dog-beast, legs squeezing it. Electricity crackled from her wrists as she brought them down against its head again and again.

Steve was dodging blasts Amora sent his way with mixed success. The shield deflected the bursts of green magic that he couldn't get out of the way of, but Steve didn't seem to be making much progress.

Hansel brought the bow back up, lining up a shot on the second creature. If he could free Tony up, he could help Steve.

There was another puddle of green mist forming. A blue column of light glittered in his periphery.

He focused on the creature's vivid yellow eye. He put the tension in his belly and arms and inhaled.

He let the arrow fly.

Amora closed her fist around it inches from her head.

Hansel grimaced. It… wasn't a complete miss, he told himself.

Amora looked up at him, eyes finding him despite the distance.

"Fuck." He muttered.

Something scaled and fanged crawled out of that third pool. Something large and red stepped out of the blue light.

Hansel noticed them only dimly, the same as he noticed Bruce tearing the head off the first creature and Natasha uncoiling from the body of the purple beast. His attention was locked on Amora.

Amora was staring at him.

She disappeared.

"Oh, that can't be good," He muttered. He scanned the street.

The red thing was a cape, he saw, attached to a large blond man.

A slim hand closed around his throat and yanked him backwards.

Hansel dropped the bow and clawed at the impossibly strong fingers.

"You're just not taking this lesson to heart, are you." Amora murmured in his ear.

The fingers closed more tightly, bruising him and cutting off his air.

He choked, panic flaring hot and pounding in his blood.

"Let him go!" That was the blond. Hansel had no idea how he'd gotten to the rooftop so quickly but he couldn't object.

Amora loosened her fingers enough for him to gasp in a desperate breath. Not loose enough for him to get free, though.

"I don't think I will, Thor." She purred.

"He has no part of this." Thor said angrily.

"No," Amora put her head on his shoulder. "He doesn't. But oh, just look at you, Thor." Amora pressed her cheek to his and Hansel felt it when she smiled. "What would you do to keep him safe, I wonder?"

Thor glared. Behind him, Tony flew up, suit covered in glistening yellow fluid. His boots landed on the rooftop with a heavy sound.

"Ah, ah," Amora chided. Her other hand came up to dig pointed nails into his side, wrapping him tight against her body.

He grunted in pain as her nails dug in.

There was a roar from the street below them. Bruce.

"Think well on it, Thor." Amora taunted.

Hansel just saw Bruce's green form landing on the rooftop before Amora turned.

The world smeared sickeningly.

When it stopped spinning, Amora let him go. He dropped to his knees, gasping and nauseous.

He lost the battle with his stomach and threw up on the floor between his hands.

The... stone floor.

He jerked his head up, taking in his surroundings.

'Cell,' was the only word that sprang to mind. It was a room maybe twenty paces long and wide. No doors, no windows.

Amora smirked at him.

He pulled an arrow out of his quiver and lunged.

She flicked a hand out almost casually.

Green tendrils of magic grabbed him and threw him down onto the cot against the wall. Chains appeared and bore him down, trapping his arms to his sides and wrapping so tightly he had trouble breathing. The quiver dug into his back painfully.

Amora walked up to him and stroked his cheek.

"Now," She said sweetly, "You're going to stay here and be good. Do you understand?"

"Fuck you!" He snarled.

She twitched her fingers and the chains tightened. He felt his ribs bending and whimpered in pain. He didn't have enough air to scream.

Amora's hand cupped his chin.

"I didn't catch that."

Hansel met her eyes. The chains started tightening again and he nodded, frantically. They stopped.

"Good boy," Amora said. She traced fingertips over his mouth and down his neck.

Hansel didn't even try to bit her.

"Good boy," She repeated.

Amora stood, turned, and disappeared.

**Chapter 22**

Clint lay on his back on the rooftop and propped his head on his crossed forearms.

It looked like the sort of sky a child would design – all colorful balls of moons or planets and ridiculously bright stars.

He'd snuck out of his rooms half an hour after being delivered there. It made him uneasy, trying to sleep in a place where he was known to be. There were too many strangers in Asgard, and too many people who knew him. Or of him, at the least. He didn't know if sitting at Odin's table would be a thing that guaranteed his safety or something that would paint a target on his back.

"It's beautiful," Gretel said quietly.

Clint grunted an agreement. Gretel had come along with him easily when he'd asked. Clint strongly suspected she was just humoring his paranoia but he still felt better knowing she was with him, where he could keep an eye on her.

He hadn't phrased it like that when he'd asked, of course. She probably would have punched him.

Scaling the palace's exterior had been reassuringly difficult. There were a few precarious jumps that he doubted anyone would have an interest in making without a solid reason. He'd be able to hear anyone coming.

Gretel settled her head against his upturned bicep and let her side press against his. Her hair smelled sweet, no doubt a scent lingering from the flowers.

"I wonder what the witches of my world would make of so many moons." She snorted. "They hold their lunar cycles so important – this would probably thoroughly throw them off."

He smiled.

"When we were, oh, eighteen or so, we spent the night in a field. It was his fault," Gretel said fondly, "We should have made it to the town before nightfall but he'd dragged his ass getting started so we had to camp off the road. The weather was good and the sky was cloudless. It was kinda nice, actually," She confided.

She shifted, propping her head more against his shoulder.

"The stars started falling. Hundreds of them, streaking these flashes of light across the sky. It was amazing. It lasted for almost an hour."

Her body shook in quiet giggles.

"The witch we were hunting, when we found her the next day, was so upset she was molting."

"That sounds… gross." Clint said, grinning.

"It was!" She said cheerily. "It was just disgusting." She sighed happily.

"I could tell you, if you'd like, how shooting stars work." He offered.

She rolled her head slightly and met his eyes.

If they were different people the proximity would have been romantic. It wasn't, though. The way Gretel touched him was as innocent as it was bossy.

Clint thought he liked having a sister.

She tugged the fur she'd brought along a bit more snuggly over the both of them.

"Tell me," She said, smiling.

So he did.

The evening passed in easy conversation and eventually a companionable silence fell.

Clint didn't even notice falling asleep.

Clint woke up to the sound of someone's feet landing on the rooftop below him.

He assessed himself. He was curled around Gretel, big-spoon style.

Light footsteps on stone.

Clint eased himself away from Gretel and picked up his gun.

She shifted and opened her eyes drowsily.

A moment later they were both pointing their weapons at the bit of roof a jumper would most likely grab hold off.

There was a rustle of boots leaving the roof below and fingers appeared on the ledge.

Fandral pulled himself up.

He blinked at them.

"Good morning?" He ventured, raising an eyebrow.

Clint lowered his gun.

"Morning." Gretel said, setting her crossbow down completely and propping her arms on her knees.

"How'd you find us?" Clint asked lightly.

"I asked Heimdall. What in the Norns are you two doing up here?"

Clint relaxed a little, knowing he hadn't been followed.

"Taking in an Asgardian sunrise," Clint said, gesturing to the admittedly beautiful horizon.

Fandral gave him a look that politely implied skepticism.

"Is Thor back?" Gretel asked.

"Nay, lady. I merely woke early and," He flashed a smile, "Dared hope for your company in breaking my fast. I did not wish to wake you if you were sleeping and was glad to cross paths with Heimdall in the palace halls. He informed me that our prince is safely on Midgard, and that you two could be found here. Naturally, I was curious as to what would lure our guests to such an odd location and, as you see, here I am." He waved a hand to encompass himself.

"Did Thor find, ah, me?" Clint asked, pulling on his boots.

Fandral twisted his mouth to one side.

"Heimdall is not the most loquacious of fellows. He'd just been in council with Odin and it took some wheedling to get even what I did from him."

Clint deflated a bit and couldn't help but notice that Fandral had clearly 'wheedled' more for information about Gretel's whereabouts than a status update on Clint's situation.

He felt a surge of defensiveness when Fandral smiled at Gretel. He blinked, surprised by the reaction and wondering if protecting-his-sister-from-dubious-men was biologically a part of Hansel.

Gretel pulled her own shoes on.

"Breakfast?" She asked Clint.

Clint levered himself up and beat Fandral in offering Gretel a hand. He folded the fur they'd used for a blanked in half and slung it over his shoulders. He secured it in place with his gun strap.

Fandral gave him a smirk that reminded him strongly of Stark.

"Very fashionable, friend."

Clint sniffed, took a short run towards the ledge and jumped down to the next rooftop.

Fandral and Gretel landed beside him a moment later.

Gretel shot him a look, eyes twinkling. She smacked his fur-clad shoulder and then she was running for the next jump.

Clint barked a surprised laugh. He shot Fandral a challenging grin that was returned with a raised eyebrow.

Clint smacked him on the back and chased after Gretel.

The climb down from the palace rooftops was the most dangerous game of tag he'd played since growing up in the circus.

Thor was on Midgard. He'd come back with Clint's body/Gretel's brother, Frigga would fix them and he could go back home. Things were looking up. Clint let tentative feelings of hope and relief take root and let himself indulge in the silliness of the game.

He'd have to tell the others that 'tag' was apparently as universal as dick jokes.

When the three of them arrived down at the gates, all of them panting and sweaty, Gretel poked him in the side decisively. Clint gave her a wry look that he hoped conveyed the unspoken rule that since she'd technically been 'it' before they got to the bottom, passing it on to him now didn't make her less the loser. He didn't comment, and she beamed at him.

Fandral was still scaling down the gate. Clint reached up and touched his calf.

Fandral jumped the last bit down. He smoothed out his clothes and gave Clint a flat look that failed to hide his amusement.

"You are, beyond question, Thor's friends." He said.

Gretel gave him a sideways look when he started pouring honey onto his bread.

He took a large bite, started chewing and raised his eyebrows at her in question when she didn't look away.

"Nothing," She said, shaking her head and seeming to only just realize she'd been staring. "He doesn't eat sweet things. It's just… odd to see."

Clint swallowed and huffed a little laugh.

"In my world, we have these fruit candies that I would eat by the bagful if Nat didn't confiscate them."

"Are these the popped tarts Thor speaks so fondly of?" Sif asked. She, Volstagg and Hogun had joined them. The room was… relatively private. The table could still easily seat thirty people but it was only the six of them there presently.

"Skittles," Clint said. "They also make great projectiles." He added, and mimed throwing one with his index and thumb.

"In a matter related," Volstagg said, tone eager. "This morning, shall we see a display of your skill?"

Hogan met his gaze and smiled slightly, daring.

Sif perked up as well. She stroked a hand down Gretel's messy braid and leaned towards her.

"May we spar? I would love to better know how a witch hunter fights."

Fandral snorted.

"You just want to fight another girl."

Sif casually threw a knife at him. He caught it, clearly having expected it.

"We will of course need to stop by the armory and get you a suitable bow." Fandral said. He eyed the gun at Clint's back curiously. Clint chose not to explain. From what he'd seen, Asgardians got into enough trouble with hammers and spears. He wasn't going to be the one to introduce firearms to them if it could be avoided.

And besides… an Asgardian bow? He wasn't passing that chance up.

He nodded agreeably.

"I'm in." He said.

Gretel smiled, with a lot of teeth, at Sif.

"Likewise."

Volstagg laughed into his mug and Clint had to bite the insides of his cheeks not to follow.

He was really looking forward to watching the two of them fight.

*  
The bow Clint settled on was simple to the point of outright boring; a simple wooden recurve. He bent it between his legs and hooked the string. He gave it a few experimental plucks.

It would do nicely. For all that it was alien, it really wasn't all that different from what he was used to.

Hogun seemed to approve of him for his choice. The quartermaster passed him one with a bit more ornamentation along the sides but it was still somewhat plain, given how fond Asgard seemed to be of detailed embellishments.

They'd attracted a bit of a crowd.

Clint looked at the people leaning against the wooden fence that ringed the training area. There were children, servants, some faces he recognized from the feast last night.

"They want to see Thor's comrade-in-arms, the Midgardian archer with eyes like a hawk. He's spoken of all of you at length, and we can't but be curious." Fandral told him.

Clint drew a few arrows out, examining the fletchings and arrowheads carefully. Satisfied, he put them back, took his gun off and handed it to Gretel. He shouldered the quiver.

Hogun paced to the end of the range. He drew the bow up smoothly and took a moment to line up his shot. Clint knew before he released that it would be a bull's-eye on the middle target.

The crowd thumped the fence and cheered enthusiastically. Hogun regarded them with a nod of acknowledgement, face serious and blank.

"Good shot." Clint told him.

Hogun dipped his head briefly, agreeing.

Clint walked to the end of the range. He adjusted his armguard and drew his bow up.

He heard a wave of scoffing chuckles behind him.

"Friend Hawkeye," Fandral said, trotting up quickly. Clint held the string ready but turned his head to look at him.

Fandral coughed awkwardly and bent towards him, speaking quietly.

"Perhaps this weapon is… dissimilar from what you are used to." He said, not quite meeting Clint's eyes.

Clint hid a smile, genuinely amused because he knew where this was going.

"Oh?" He asked, schooling his face into a show of confusion.

"The way you hold the bow is, ah… well," Fandral fumbled for a tactful way to phrase this. Clint kept the string taut and kept his eyes on Fandral. "Akin to a novice." He finished in a whisper, spreading his hands apologetically.

Clint let go of the string. He immediately drew and fired another arrow without looking at the targets.

He fired a third arrow straight into the air. He walked over to Sif, took the apple she was eating and tossed it up over his shoulder.

He bowed to the crowd with a flourish. Story-telling might not be his strength but he'd learned showmanship as a child.

Behind him, he knew the left and right targets had arrows through the center.

The pierced apple impaled the ground with a firm 'thunk.'

The crowd went apeshit.

Fandral gaped at him, expression morphing from confusion to childlike delight.

"Another!" Volstagg cheered, eyes darting through the crowd. A little girl thrust her arm through the fence, handing him her half-eaten apple.

Clint grinned and nocked another arrow.

Sif and Gretel were both leaning against the fence and waiting for him to finish to spar. He shrugged apologetically at them.

He got the feeling he'd be here for a while.

**Chapter 23**

Amora walked through the streets of... she believed the place was called 'Tuxedo,' and seethed with contempt. Walking about invisible took energy she hated to spend but every time she'd dropped her spells those shiny mortal _fools_ of Thor's coterie saw fit to interfere with her.

She wanted to visit her lover in Vanaheim or eat the fruits that grew in the mist of Niflheim or simply go home to Asgard.

An impossible prospect. It had taken her months of slipping between worlds to even find herself here. She had no intention of leaving until Thor gave her what she wanted, and she knew this realm was of special importance to him. By the Norns, the way he'd gone on about his little mortals. It was pathetic; forming such a bond with something by its nature so fleeting. She would take that idiotic affection of his and manipulate it until he gave her what she wanted just to make her go.

Amora tilted her head and watched the progress of a woman wearing a hideously ugly dress. A group of youths called to her, offering lewd suggestions. The woman raised her middle finger at them and increased the pace of her steps. One of the boys spat on the street.

What did Thor _see_ in these people?

Amora could slip into the bubble worlds she'd created like putting her hand in her pocket, but the bubbles were by their very nature sparse and uninviting. Everything must be conjured rather than simply enjoyed.

Those pocket worlds were a sorcerer's trick to create a hiding spot or safe haven for sleep when none could be trusted in the material worlds. They were not a substitute for travel.

Loki had taught her how to make them. No doubt that egg-laying son of bilgesnipe has used the peeks into her magics those lessons had granted him as a doorway to this current trick of his.

She was going to cut that silver tongue of his _off_ when she found him. The Allfather's mercy in hiding him would do naught more than put Loki at her own.

Oh, she could imagine it – those glass green eyes of his widening in surprise. She would shock him, oh yes she would. The thought of him stripped of his powers made her pulse flutter with excitement. She squeezed her thighs together and thought about how prettily he would beg, and plead, and scream.

She saw the flash of a red cloak in the corner of her eye and turned her head sharply to follow it. The man disappeared through the entrance of something and she followed, sliding easily around the people gathered at the gate.

She needed to rest a bit before she risked engaging him again, but no harm in following him. Thor may even show her more soft spots to exploit. She grinned and quickened her steps.

The grounds inside were a motley of colorful people and marketplace booths.

Amora's gaze was drawn to the young couple with hands and heads locked inside a pillory. As she watched, they pulled faces suggesting misery and there was the flash of light from the little device held by an onlooker. The couple went back to grinning and easily lifted the wooden latch, slipping away.

Amora frowned.

What punishment was this that they could so easily escape? But, perhaps the duration of punishments was scaled to a mortal's lifetime.

Still, there was scaling and then there was ludicrous brevity. When the next pair positioned themselves inside, she waved a hand and fixed the latch so it would remain shut.

Amora smiled gleefully as she watched fear blooming on their faces when they tried to leave. Much better, she thought.

Ah, but she'd dallied. She scanned the crowds, looking for that flash of red.

She did not see it.

No matter. He was here somewhere.

She spied a group of women with clothing not so dissimilar from her own and dared to let her invisibility spell drop.

It was like setting down a weight. She sighed and rolled her shoulders gladly.

The women were suckling at thin, colorful tubes of something that smelled enticing and vaguely familiar.

"What fare is this?" She asked. The women startled, not expecting her to be so close behind them.

"The…Renaissance Faire?" One of them said, waving a hand to indicate the grounds. She gave Amora a look that implied the answer had been obvious.

Amora frowned, insulted.

"This," She said clearly and pointed at the slender tube.

"A honey stick?" One of the others said.

Honey. That was the smell. Amora looked around, wanting one.

"They're selling them over there." The second girl said and pointed towards booths on the other side of the square.

Amora spotted it. She regarded the girl levelly.

"My thanks. You, I shall not turn into a pig."

Amora put her fingers on the insulting girl's forehead and stepped back with satisfaction as her form melted into something altogether more squealing and pink.

She clasped her hands together, pleased, but looked up in confusion when people around her started screaming and pointing.

They were all pointing at her.

How irritating.

She picked her spells back up and disappeared.

It only made them scream louder.

She sauntered across the square, helping herself to a handful of the honey sticks. She hadn't known Midgardian bees made honey in so many different colors but she was excited about trying them.

People were still screaming.

She rolled her eyes, watching the girls try and fail to get a hold of their pig friend. The spell was a trifle. It would collapse inside of five minutes and leave the brat naked but otherwise unharmed. Perhaps she would hesitate to speak so to her betters in the future. Really, Amora had done her a favor, teaching her the lesson so gently.

She waited for Thor to appear. No doubt the commotion would draw him. Much easier than having to hunt him down, and then she could just follow him invisibly while the buffoon took her back to whatever had brought him here in the first place.

She drew one of the honey sticks from her pocket and contemplated the thin sheath. How to open…?

There - a blacksmith. Amora walked over and stole one of the displayed knives. She held the tube carefully and ran the blade over the end.

Nothing happened.

The tube's material had felt so thin – but perhaps it was stronger than it looked.

She ran the knife over it again.

And again, nothing. Amora ran a curious finger over the edge of the knife and was shocked to find it quite dull. _This_ was a ware the smith had found worthy of display?

She threw it on the ground in disgust and set her teeth to the end of the tube instead.

The wrapping ripped and honey splattered across her chin and down the front of her bodice.

She huffed angrily and swiped at the sticky stuff with minimal success. She licked her fingers.

It did taste nice. She'd allow for that much.

She was about to move on when one of the smith's wares caught her eye.

A hammer.

A short-handled, engraved hammer with a leather strap hanging from the end.

She'd know it anywhere.

Thor must have set it down. He had to be nearby.

Amora acted quickly. She reached out and stroked the heavy stone. She knew better than to try and pick it up.

Grinning, she put her hands flat on the table on either side of it and opened her bubble world beneath it.

The hammer fell in with the heavy 'clang' of stone on stone. Good – it hadn't hit her prisoner, then.

She closed the bubble and skipped cheerfully away. Oh, delightful. _Delightful_. Thor would truly give her what she wanted, now.

She stopped. Her smile faded and she turned back around.

She walked back up to the blacksmith's display table and stared dumbly at a second Mjolnir.

She cast her eyes around quickly. A trick, this must be a trick.

Thor was nowhere to be seen.

She put out a hand and touched the hammer, tracing its edges.

She wrapped her fingers around the handle and breathed in surprise as she quite easily picked it up.

A fake.

Amora started laughing, full and from her belly.

The _arrogance_ of these mortals.

She looked through the crowd, hoping to find the blacksmith and punish him for his presumption.

The square was a chaos. Mortals were so easy to upset. A bit of simple magic and this was the result?

She scoffed, but immediately her eyes landed on the man calmly surveying the scene from the periphery.

He was looking for something and Amora knew, immediately and unquestionably, that he was looking for her. No doubt he had been sent from Midgard's shield. As she watched, he brought a device up to the side of his face and spoke into it. She watched his mouth carefully. Yes, that was her name.

She made one more swipe at the honey on her clothes and tried to decide if it was worth it to linger.

Perhaps not. This minion would summon the others and Amora was still tired and in no mood for a difficult fight. Better to wait until she had a clearer advantage. She glanced around once more for Thor but he made no appearance.

She bristled with displeasure but held her head high as she opened her pocket world and stepped inside. She had a new toy to play with, after all, and while he wasn't Loki Amora felt sure he'd still beg prettily.

The first thing she noticed when she dropped inside was that the chains wrapped around her bed were empty.

She turned.

The boy's eyes blazed with anger and his skin looked rubbed raw and bruised. Getting out of the chains couldn't have been easy.

Amora brought up a hand.

He was faster.

The hammer smashed into the side of her head, and all fell away to darkness.

**Chapter 24**

Director Fury stared across the table and, in his defense, Stark did look like he was _trying_ to stop giggling.

Steve was eyeballing Stark like he was regretting not taking the seat next to him. Natasha had no doubt that if he'd been in range the billionaire would have been swatted by now.

As it was, the only one sitting near enough was Thor and the thunder god looked preoccupied with his own thoughts. He didn't seem to be paying the meeting much attention. The caged tesseract lay on the table in front of him, Thor's hand wrapped tightly around the handle as it had been since he'd appeared.

Natasha looked at the chain floating out from his wrist and knew she wasn't the only one with questions Thor hadn't answered in the quick debrief.

"As I was saying," Fury growled once Stark had taken a drink of water and settled himself a bit. "This was a level 2 disruption. Our surveillance shows she didn't do anything more than lock a pillory and-" Stark started giggling again. Fury rolled his eye.

Natasha flicked her glance to the side to meet Clint's gaze and share the acknowledgment that Fury was probably going to shoot Stark before this meeting was through.

The chair next to her was empty.

Of course it was.

Natasha kept her face blank and turned back to regarding the chain on Thor's wrist.

"I do not understand," Thor rumbled quietly. "Why was the pillory unlocked? Or was it empty and she locked it so that it may not be used?" He glanced up from the stare he'd been leveling at the tesseract. The reflected glow caught and glimmered in his blue eyes.

Steve shrugged. Natasha realized he'd be just as lost as Thor in this conversation.

"It's a carnival, or sorts," She said. "It makes a game of a time in the past. People go and pretend that they're walking around during the Renaissance. The pillory isn't supposed to actually be used as a punishment tool – it's just a," She twisted her mouth, "Prop, or a toy. So that people can pretend they're locked up."

Stark had a look about him like he was about to make a joke about toys that locked people up. She gave him a warning look.

Thor frowned, but then nodded, his brow smoothing out in understanding.

"In years past, this realm was a much simpler place."

Steve smiled at Thor with something like vindication.

Fury sighed.

"Amora also turned one of the attendees into a pig and committed petty theft before she disappeared."

Stark's shoulders trembled suspiciously.

"What did she take?" Bruce asked, propping his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers.

Fury glanced at the report.

"Candy and a replica of Mjolnir."

Stark was gone again.

"A replica of Mjolnir?" Thor asked over Stark's stifled laughter. "How is this done? The magics on my hammer are the make of a master dwarf smith. I did not believe Midgard had any of those."

"The replicas only look like Mjolnir – they don't function the same way." Fury clarified.

Natasha noted that he didn't confirm or deny the existence of Midgardian master dwarf smiths.

Although, on reflection, Natasha might be a little paranoid when it came to the information Fury withheld.

Thor looked like he had more questions but he stopped and regrouped.

"Amora will try to draw me out. My fear is that in her mischief she will go too far."

"We're working on a way of tracing her," Bruce said. "We have spectrometers looking for the energy signature our research suggests is associated with, ah, magic." He adjusted his glasses. "But it's going to take some time for us to get solid readings. In the meantime, we have some ideas for enhancing the suppression field we've been working on. The adjustments shouldn't take too long to make."

"Why does Amora want you so badly?" Stark asked. He thumbed moisture from the corner of his eye and took a deep breath. A smile lingered but Natasha gave him credit for making an attempt at taking this seriously.

Her own amusement at Amora causing havoc at a Renaissance Fair was something she buried deep. It would be funny once she had Barton back.

Thor dropped his gaze to the tesseract. He held up his hand and indicated the disappearing chain.

"I keep the gate. She seeks me to gain access to Loki's prison." He said grimly.

Everyone at the table stilled a little at that. The smile on Stark's face finally faded completely.

Bruce leaned forward and stared at the chain.

"Interesting. What are we thinking – transdimensional tether?" He asked Stark.

Stark gave him an expressionless stare.

"So, Pepper and I have been talking about the people on our 'approved' list in the eventuality of a three-"

"No." Natasha cut him off.

He inhaled to continue.

"No." She said firmly.

Steve looked between Natasha and Tony, then Tony and Bruce and his cheeks turned a remarkable shade of red.

Natasha was kind of impressed. She didn't think he would've picked up on that one. Or maybe he was just used to Natasha reigning Stark in.

Fury started rubbing his temples.

Bruce looked amused.

"We need a plan," Steve said firmly. "We need to stop Amora from escalating things, we need to rescue Hansel and we need Clint back. Thor," Steve looked at the tesseract, "Could you return to Asgard and retrieve Clint?"

Thor tipped his head to the side, considering.

"Easily. But when we retrieve the warrior Hansel, we would have a need to return them both to my lady mother to right the magics that have altered them."

Fury nodded.

"What is the WSC's play?" Natasah asked bluntly.

"I'm optimistic." Fury said. "He was seen fighting successfully with the team in the last skirmish. They know he was taken by Amora but if we can show them Thor returning with him quickly I believe they'll be satisfied with SHIELD's assessment on whether or not he's been compromised."

Thor frowned.

"What is this?"

"The 'World Security Council.'" Steve said in a tone Natasha knew he thought was even. Natasha really needed to get him to work on his poker face. "They're a… force, a group of people, that have power of SHIELD."

"To some extent." Fury qualified.

"They're charged with 'protecting the realm,' but their methods sometimes leave a bit to be desired." Natasha explained. She didn't want to defend the WSC but she did recognize that they were working for the greater good. If Fury thought they'd let Barton go without another round of interrogations, she'd trust his judgment.

Tony rolled his eyes but held his tongue. He was probably still angry about the nuke.

Thor stood.

"I shall leave at once. I will need to consult with my father before I return to Midgard but I do not believe the delay to be more than an hour…" He trailed off and surveyed them. " In Asgard, Heimdall is a fixed point. Traveling by these means," He hefted the tesseract, "Is done by drawing oneself near to a specific person or place. Given your... troubles, with this WSC, whom should I use as a return point?"

"Who did you use this time?" Bruce asks curiously.

"America's Captain." Thor said, inclining his head towards Steve. Steve's eyebrows twitched in pleased surprise.

Thor, though, had a shifty look about him. Natasha did a quick mental rundown: She was a spy and her cover could be blown by the sudden appearance of a Norse god, Bruce might turn green if startled and there were decent odds at any given point in time that Tony might be having sex.

Steve gave her a questioning look and she realized she'd been smirking at him a bit.

She schooled her features and stood, walking over to stand next to Thor.

"Steve is a good choice. Director Fury, I should go too - bring Agent Barton up to speed while Thor is consulting with Odin."

"Agent Romanov, the team is already one member down." Fury pointed out.

"It's fine, we've got this," Stark said, surprisingly eager to back her decision. She gave him a curious look and he didn't quite meet her eyes in return. She resisted the urge to glare, realizing he thought she needed to talk to Clint about the sex.

"Besides," Stark added. He did tend to babble when there was something he wanted. "We've tried fighting her with everything from words to the Hulk. Time to bring in science, and while Agent Romanov offers many things," He briefly leered. She narrowed her eyes, "I don't think tweaking the suppression field is her forte."

Fury glanced between the two of them, assessing.

"Go. Get back quickly. You two," He waved fingers between Bruce and Tony, "Get to work. Captain Rogers, find someplace comfortable." He leveled a challenging look at them all. No one argued.

"Lady Romanov, may I extend the hospitality of Asgard to you." Thor said, and Natasha was sure there was something dry lurking in his polite tone. "Grasp the handle and take a breath. This can be… disorienting." Thor continued, holding the cage up towards her.

Natasha slid her fingers around the golden handle. It tingled against her skin like it had a low electrical charge.

She saw Tony inhale to make a quip, but the world smeared away before he got it out.

She landed heavily and fell into a low crouch, leg extended, fingertips of her left hand to the ground and the cage still gripped tightly in her right.

She swept her eyes over the surroundings, taking in the high, golden walls and smooth stone floor, the guards who looked at the two of them questioningly. The massive guy with the golden-horned helmet staring at them with calm, orange eyes.

She rose smoothly.

"Heimdall, I had thought you to be at the gate," Thor said, smiling a greeting.

The helmed head dipped in acknowledgment, eyes never leaving Natasha. She felt that gaze as if it was going through her. She felt her skin tightening with unease and defensiveness.

"The Allfather wished my council." Heimdall replied, his voice a slow rich baritone. He carried a sword longer than Natasha was tall.

He bent down, leaning into her space.

Natasha held herself rigid. She could take him down if she needed to.

"You do them both a disservice," He whispered.

Her mouth went dry.

"What?" Thor asked, concerned, "Heimdall, what did you say? You've upset the Lady Romanov."

"It's fine, Thor." She said, sharp and firm. Fucking amateur, she thought ferociously and forced her features back into a calm mask. "It's fine."

"My Prince, the king awaits you," Heimdall said. His unsettling eyes went back to her. "You will find Clint Barton on the training grounds."

He bowed his head to Thor and walked off with long, deliberate strides.

Thor frowned after him.

"Training grounds?" She interrupted before Thor could ask.

He regarded her but, thankfully, let it go.

He took in their surroundings and led her to where the halls intersected.

"This hall will lead you to a courtyard. Once outside, the grounds should be within your sight. I shall fetch you both from there once I am finished."

She nodded and started down the hallway.

Behind her she felt Thor hesitate, watching her, then finally turn to go.

She walked down the halls confidently. Rule #1 of infiltration – act like you belonged. It worked just as well on Asgardians as it did on her own people and once she was past the group that had seen them arrive she felt the tension leaving her shoulders as people stopped noticing her.

She found the courtyard easily and beyond it she could indeed see the training grounds.

It would have been hard to miss, what with the crowd.

The wall of bodies blocked the spectacle from her view but something good must have happened from the cheer that went up.

In the roar of it, she heard Clint laughing.

Something in her heart unclenched.

She broke into a jog, knowing it was stupid and attention-grabbing but willing to trust in her safety here enough to risk it.

She cut in through the crowd until she had a decent view. She kept low, wanting to see him before he saw her.

In the middle of the fenced yard two women were fighting. Natasha raised her eyebrows in surprised admiration as the one on the ground swept her legs up and pulled the other down with a grab around her waist. Sif, the one who'd just gone down was Sif. She recognized her from reports of the New Mexico incident. Natasha assessed the other woman in the fight and would bet her best knife that that was Gretel.

The crowd made a unison 'ohhh,' sound as Sif hit the dirt, cheering and whooping as she quickly rolled Gretel under her, still in the lock.

They both fought well. Natasha watched them and noted with approval that neither was really trying to injure the other. In fact, knowing Thor's strength, she had to imagine Sif was holding back quite a bit.

They were both snarling and smiling, joyful at being able to spar with a skilled opponent.

Gretel butted her head forward hard, catching Sif at the collar and knocking her back.

Natasha spotted Clint.

He had a fist in front of his mouth, smiling wide, uninhibited in a way he hadn't been since Loki. She missed what the women did to make him burst into laughter and applause, too enraptured with watching him be happy to notice the lesser spectacle.

God, he looked so young.

Gretel snaked an arm around Sif's neck but Sif blocked and spun them down, pinning Gretel with Gretel's arm at the small of her back.

Sif held her for a moment before Gretal, panting and laughing, smacked the ground with her free hand in surrender.

Sif beamed and helped her up.

"You fought well!" Sif declared. Gretel wrinkled her nose in disagreement but she was smiling.

Natasha watched money changing hands amongst quite a few people.

She worked her way forward and climbed over the fence, dropping into the training area smoothly.

Clint's eyes locked on her and he startled, smile faltering with his surprise and then rekindling brighter than before.

He ran across the space and swept her up in a hug.

She returned it with enough strength that he grunted

"You brought Hansel? We can fix this?" He said as soon as they parted.

She shook her head and watched him brace himself.

"There have been some complications." She told him.

"When aren't there," He said ruefully. "How bad?"

She glanced over his shoulder at the inquisitive faces of the Warriors Three, Sif and Gretel. For the most part, everyone else had stayed on the other side of the fence.

She led them towards the targets at far side of the training grounds for a bit of privacy.

"Amora took Hansel."

"'Took,' what do you mean, 'took?'" The girl, presumably Gretel, demanded.

"We were fighting Amora, she grabbed him, they disappeared." Natasha explained simply.

"You took him fighting with the team?" Clint groaned.

"It needed to be done." She said. Clint looked at her, hearing the things she wasn't saying. Slowly, he nodded his understanding.

She put a hand to his cheek and gave him a small, reassuring smile.

"Hard to believe there are two of this exact muppet face in the universe." She said lightly.

"Hey!" He squawked indignantly.

Things weren't fixed yet. They weren't right yet.

But Clint was here, alive, healthy, known.

Natasha smiled at him and took what felt like her first deep breath in days.

**Chapter 25**

Clint watched Natasha watching Gretel and Sif.

He felt weirdly attuned to the part of him that had clearly spent too much time hanging out with Stark.

He discretely bit his lip to keep from saying anything that would promptly get him beaten.

Natasha glanced at him, sloe-eyed and knowing, and he grinned unrepentantly.

She rolled her eyes.

Fuck, it was good to have her back.

Sif slid a finger into Natasha's gun belt and gave it a little tug.

"Why do wear two belts?" She asked.

Natasha looked from Sif's finger up to her face and then to the slash of fabric suggesting a short skirt hanging down from Sif's armor.

The challenge in her expression made Clint's balls retract instinctively.

Gretel burst out laughing and Sif wasn't far behind her.

Natasha gave them both a satisfied smile.

Women, Clint thought.

Fandral met his eyes and they shared a look. But then the man went back to regarding Natasha with interest and Clint had to really put forth some effort not to cackle. He would happily pay to see Fandral try to hit on Natasha.

If he could find a way to record it he was pretty sure he could get Stark to fund it.

"It is, truly, only a matter of time until regret visits him." Hogun said quietly from his shoulder.

Clint kind of liked Hogun.

"Shall we have a feast to welcome the Lady Romanov?" Volstagg asked.

"We're not staying long," Natasha said. "In fact, Thor will be taking us back as soon as he's done conferencing with Odin."

Volstagg and Fandral both pouted.

Sif scoffed fondly at them.

"We should talk," Natasha said to Clint. He nodded. He needed to be debriefed. She walked towards the targets and, with an apologetic nod to the others, Clint trotted after her.

Gretel followed.

Natasha turned and leveled a stare at her that clearly told her that was a bad idea.

Gretel returned it evenly.

"I need to know what's happened to my brother." She demanded, not giving an inch.

Clint could see Natasha assessing the potential information leak Gretel represented.

She shrugged slightly.

"Fury has been able to keep the WSC in check. Banner and Stark are tweaking the suppression field and working on a way to trace the energy signature they believe is related to the transcognitive event," Natasha said once they'd stopped at the far side of the training field.

Clint turned to Gretel.

"My boss has been keeping your brother safe. Our teammates are working on a way to fight Amora and find your brother now." He translated.

"Thank you," Gretel said with a pointed, unimpressed look at Natasha.

Gretel was not lacking in spine, Clint would give her that. Natasha quirked an eyebrow and continued. Clint noted that she stopped trying to exclude Gretel by using language she wouldn't be able to follow.

"We've had a few fights with Amora since you were switched – nothing major, no causalities, minimum injuries. The most she's done is some property damage but her last move, kidnapping Hansel, it's a step up that has us worried that she's ready to escalate things."

"She hasn't mentioned having an army, has she?" Clint asked, equal parts bitter and dry.

"She keeps summoning these," Natasha waved her hands vaguely, then brought them together, fingers spread, and mimed large biting teeth, "Creatures." She finished.

He quirked an eyebrow.

"You said Hansel was with you in the fight. Is he," Gretel paused and rephrased, "Was he alright before Amora took him?"

Natasha nodded.

"The team was watching out for him." She assured Gretel. She didn't look altogether convinced.

"I'm the prettiest of them," He confided, face drawn in a serious frown, "It would be bad for morale if anything happened to me."

Gretel snorted and it released some of the tension bunching her shoulders.

Sif and the Warriors Three were lingering at the far end, talking amongst themselves but also very obviously stalling and waiting to talk to them some more.

"Anything else I need to know?" Clint asked. He was weirdly drawn to the idea of seeing Sif, Natasha and Gretel hanging out. It was like a transdimensional boobed BAMF convention.

Clint blinked and quickly added that to his mental list of things he should never say out loud.

"SHIELD will need to run you through a nominal assessment when you get back. Fury's floating the story that when Thor returns with you, it's because he's rescued you from Amora. We're hoping the quick turn-around time will keep anyone from digging too deeply."

"What about when we get Hansel back?" He asked. "That story won't hold up if the WSC sees footage of there being two of me."

"We're hoping we'll be able to take the fight to her and control the surveillance."

"And if that fails?" He pressed. He didn't want to go back to the WSC. The week they'd spent 'assessing' him after Loki had been…

His mouth twitched and he looked down. He didn't want to go through that again.

Natasha cupped his chin in a firm hand and made him meet her eyes.

"Then we'll say Hansel was an illusion Amora conjured to try and throw us off. There's a precedent for Asgardians creating magical doubles. We'll be able to vouch for you and say with certainty that you were with us the whole time."

"What about Gretel?" He asked. "Where are we going to say she came from?"

Natasha glanced from Gretel to Clint.

"She stays here. Thor will-"

"The hell I am." Gretel interrupted. "I'm not leaving him."

"You will compromise him and put him in danger if you go." Natasha said flatly. "Our plans rely on deception. The fewer pieces in play, the less chance of something going wrong."

"I am not a goddamn piece in play – I'm his sister!"

"No, you aren't." Natasha said coldly. "Clint Barton isn't your brother. You have no claim to him. I do. You will stay here and let me do what needs to be done to keep him safe."

"Uhhh…" Clint started, wondering if he should interject. Natasha's eyes flashed to him and he quickly held up his hands in a show of surrender.

Gretel tossed her head, sending her braid back over her shoulder. She glared.

"What is the problem? That your story wouldn't account for me? Why not just say I was another of Amora's prisoners?"

Natasha paused.

Gretel crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for an objection.

"Great," She said after a beat when it became clear Natasha had none. "Glad we got that settled."

"Tasha?" Clint ventured.

She met his eyes and, after a moment, nodded.

"It could work." She conceded and gave Gretel a small, approving smile. "It's a good idea."

Gretel stance relaxed into something less confrontational. She didn't know Natasha well enough to know the smile was all surface.

He would need to talk to Natasha later. She was more on edge than this situation called for and it made him think he should probably brace for bad news.

He wanted to ask if the others were alright. She'd said 'minimal injuries,' but her definition of 'minimal' could be fairly… subjective.

"Thank you." Gretel said before he could work up the courage.

Behind them, Volstagg called out a greeting and they turned to watch Thor approach.

"That was fast," Natasha commented lightly.

The three of them rejoined the group of Asgardians.

When Thor walked up, Natasha frowned at the bobbing, twitching chain at Thor's wrist.

Clint gave her a questioning look, sure that she couldn't have missed the chain when Thor first contacted her.

"It wasn't doing that before." She said, eyebrows making it a question.

And Thor, unmistakably, looked at Clint before dropping his gaze.

Clint froze.

"He's tugging at the chain when you're close to me." He said, certain of it.

Thor gave him a sad, guilty look that confirmed it.

Clint took a step back.

"How?" He breathed, "How the fuck does he know I'm here?" He could feel sweat prickling at his hairline. He was torn between anger and nauseous fear.

"Friend Hawkeye, be calm." Thor said, holding up the hand not holding the tesseract cage. It was his cuffed hand.

Clint watched the chain jerk violently then change direction. It was pulling towards him.

He took another step back.

"He can do you no harm," Thor insisted, looking pained and earnest and so very damn sad.

"Thor, how does he know I'm here?" He demanded, voice tight.

"There is," Thor started and frowned, struggling with the words, trying, Clint could see, to lessen this blow. "A… slight," He hedged, "Connection."

"What does he want with Clint?" Natasha said, voice professional and stripped of emotion. This was her getting mission parameters. It steadied Clint.

Thor looked again at Clint and then darted his eyes away.

"My lady, it matters not. I swear to you," He said, "To you both, he is no threat. He is stripped of his powers and bound."

Clint stared at the chain.

He made his body language relax and, after a moment, slowly, he nodded, bringing his eyes back up to Thor's and smiling weakly.

Thor looked relieved.

"Lady Sif," Thor said, "I entrust you with the care of Lady Gretel until I return."

Sif inclined her head in easy agreement.

"Why does Sif get trusted with her care? I'm very careful." Fandral said teasingly, trying to further break the tension.

Or possibly he was serious, Clint wasn't quite sure.

"I'm going with you." Gretel said. She held a hand up, wigging her fingers in demand for the handle of the tesseract's cage.

Thor raised his eyebrows and looked from Gretel to Sif to Natasha.

Clint almost smirked, reading the thoughts written across Thor's face.

"She goes with us," Natasha confirmed.

"I'm sure I'd've gotten you in the rematch, though," Gretel told Sif. The Asgardian grinned at her.

"Another time," Sif promised.

Thor held up the cage.

Gretel and Natasha wrapped their fingers around the handle, hands close together to give him room.

Thor turned to say something to the Warriors Three.

Clint took the opportunity.

He lunged forward, grabbed the chain, and pulled himself into Loki's prison.

**Chapter 26**

He rolled when he hit the floor and came up smoothly swinging his gun off his shoulder and leveling it at the god on the other end of the chain.

Loki had it stretched taut between his hands like he was using it for tug of war. He stood in the middle of the room with maybe ten feet of the chain pooling loosely between his far hand and the cuff at his wrist.

He blinked at Clint and dropped the heavy links with a clatter.

Clint circled away from the vanishing end, keeping his gun trained on the pale god. He figured he had seconds until Thor came through and he wanted this confrontation. He fucking needed it.

His fingers trembled around the gun, adrenaline making him shaky.

When he'd faced down Loki at the end of the battle and drawn his bow on him, he hadn't yet known Coulson was dead.

Loki held up his thin hands in a gesture of peace, green eyes flicking rapidly between the end of the gun and Clint's face.

"Hi," Clint bit out.

Loki's eyes met his and steadied.

"A trade," He said quietly.

"A trade," Clint repeated. Where was Thor? He dared a glance at the slack chain.

"We've a moment. Thor won't risk putting the tesseract within my reach." Loki said. "Although," He added and waved a hand slightly, "Perhaps I misjudge your prudence and you did indeed join me from Asgard's treasure rooms?" He lifted an eyebrow skeptically.

Clint shivered and gripped his gun tighter. He calculated how long it would take for Thor to get back to the hidden wall and secure the tesseract.

This was such a fucking bad idea.

"What do you want?" He demanded, letting the fear translate into anger. "Tugging on that chain when I'm near Thor, what the fuck do you want?" He barked.

In his periphery, he took in the room. Stone walls, stone floor, stone ceiling. No windows. A large space, bookshelves, a fireplace, a table, a bed.

There were sure as fuck worse prisons and it made him all the angrier.

He took in the dark circles under Loki's eyes, startling against the stark white of his cheeks. His lips were chapped, hair disheveled and lank. His hands weren't quite steady as he held them up.

He looked like shit. Like someone suffering from sickness or nightmares. Without his armor he looked weak.

A mean part of Clint drank the observation in gladly.

"As I said, a trade," Loki let his hands slowly fall to his sides. "Thor tells me Amora is on Midgard."

"So, what, you're offering to switch me back?" Clint asked.

Loki tipped his head and narrowed his eyes.

"I could," He agreed. "But I would have thought there's something you want more."

"Setting aside my no doubt shiny, tempting prize for a second," Clint sneered, "What's in this 'trade' for you?"

Loki looked at him levelly. "You convince Thor to bring me Amora."

Clint paused.

That hadn't been what he was expecting.

He schooled his features to hide his reaction.

"Let me guess, Amora busts you out? Because I hate to burst this bubble, but from what I hear I'm pretty sure she hates you almost as much as I do."

"She has neither the inclination nor the power to see me free of here," Loki's calm façade wavered a bit at that, slipping towards a scowl. Loki dropped his eyes and smoothed out the front of his tunic. When he looked up, he was back to mildly supplicating.

Clint still hadn't lowered the gun.

"Where is 'here,' anyway? Because I've gotta say, I'm not too impressed with Asgard's idea of an appropriate punishment for a mass murderer. This is some fucking cushy house arrest you've landed yourself."

"It's no barren moon." Loki agreed. His tone was light but there was a bitterness in the statement that gave Clint pause.

Loki broke the eye contact and walked slowly towards the table, the chain making a loud slithering sound against the stone floor.

He turned his back to Clint and started pouring what looked like wine into a cup.

"Amora can provide me with… let us say, a service." Loki said, turning around and taking a drink.

"Oh, I don't think I want to hear this." Clint grimaced. "The mental picture of you two psychos bumping uglies is something I don't need."

"Bumping, what is-" Loki waved a dismissive hand. "You misunderstand me. There is a channel in my mind I need her to seal shut. Surely this is something you can find little objection to. I," Loki smiled into his cup and it was a twisted, hateful expression, "I seek to diminish myself."

Clint shook his head, not in denial so much as disbelief.

"Why?" He settled on.

Loki set the cup down and leaned a hip against the table. Clint could see that he was going for arrogant confidence but he just didn't look healthy enough to pull it off.

"Because I have something Amora wants in exchange and she's the only sorceress powerful enough within reach that I have such leverage with."

"That's not what I meant."

"No," Loki said simply, "But does it matter? I give you what you want, you give me what I want. A trade."

Clint snorted.

"This is a far damn cry from telling me to kneel, isn't it? How does it feel, having to beg for favors from your former puppet?"

"You weren't a puppet," Loki denied calmly, eyes glittering with suppressed anger. "Puppets warrant direct attention. You were less than that."

Clint fired.

The sound was overwhelming in the stone room but Clint didn't even flinch.

Loki clutched at his shoulder and Clint watched in vicious satisfaction as blood peeked between his fingers and stained the fabric. It was little more than a graze but it was good, so fucking good to know that he could hurt Loki.

"Whoops," Clint said with flat insincerity.

Clint watched Loki swallow his pride. He hadn't realized it would be such a visible act but the deliberate way Loki firmed his mouth and relaxed the hand not holding his bleeding shoulder couldn't be called anything else.

Clint had the power here and they both knew it.

Clint wasn't enjoying it as much as he thought he would.

Loki watched him quietly. His blood made little 'paff' sounds as the drops hit the stone.

"All I ask," Loki said when the silence had stretched well past painful. "Is that you convince Thor to deliver Amora to me. And in return, I give you want you want."

"What is it, exactly, that you think I want?" Clint said. He was tired of this. He didn't know what he thought he'd get out of this confrontation but this, it wasn't…

He just wanted Thor to show up and take him back.

Loki gave him a reproachful, incredulous look.

"I know mortal affections wax and wane but I had not thought you so cold, Clint Barton."

"What," Clint ground out, "The fuck are you talking about?"

"If you help me," Loki said slowly, faintly mocking, as though the answer was obvious, "I will release my hold on your Agent Phil Coulson."

Thor burst in, Mjolnir in hand and the tesseract nowhere in sight.

Clint didn't know what his face was doing that Thor could take in Loki's bleeding form and still come to him first to see if he was okay.

He jerked away from the hand Thor put on his elbow. He carefully shouldered his gun. He didn't want it in his hands right now.

"Loki…" Thor started, his voice unsure.

"No harm was done," Loki insisted.

"What do you mean," Clint said, voice harsh, "What do you mean, you 'will release your hold.'"

"What I say," Loki said. "Did you not wonder why he will not wake?"

Clint felt cold.

"When I touched him with my staff, what need had I for his loyalty? My plans came upon fruition. I only needed him out of the way." Loki said, tone persuasive and reasonable. As though talking about stabbing Clint's lover in the back wasn't something worth getting emotional about. "And he stays out of the way. I've given him no new orders." Loki concluded.

"Brother," Thor said slowly. "What have you done?"

"Get me out of here," Clint said, turning to Thor. He could hear how pleading his voice was and couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. "Thor, please, please, just get me out of here."

Clint was vaguely aware of Thor hesitating, blue eyes flicking between the two of them.

His large hand closed around Clint's shoulder and he took them back to Asgard.

**Chapter 27**

WARNING: Amora's POV. Rapey thoughts.

Consciousness returned with a nauseating clash of smells; the sticky sweet of honey and the sour smells of bodily fluids. The human must have relieved itself in a corner.

Amora's shoulder was damp and reeked – she'd landed in his puddle of vomit.

She squirmed, disgust motivating her to move her aching body and dizzy head.

The chains wrapped around her body held her still.

Amora snapped both her eyes open. Her left one hurt – the whole left side of her face hurt from the blow he'd landed with that hammer.

She felt a sharp prick at her neck and the tickle of blood threading over her skin.

"I wouldn't," The boy said.

Amora settled herself down against the bed. It was comfortable – it was hers, after all – but the chains were tight and the boy was crouching on the side of the bed and adding his weight to the metal links.

The sharp edge of… something, an arrow head, maybe? Dug into her neck. It was unpleasant.

"Naughty," She murmured, "Naughty, naughty boy." She squirmed against the chains and grinned lasciviously when he dug the point in harder.

"Let me go and I won't cut your head off," He said, the puppy, all snarling teeth and young, soft flesh. Amora wanted to tousle his hair and pull those teeth out, leave him pink and bleeding.

She smiled.

"Your sister," She purred, "Moaned like a whore when I pulled her arm out of place. Is pain something precious to you siblings? Is that what this is about?"

She turned her face into the blow he landed, laughing in delight.

She concentrated and, after a moment, her split lip was healed. She extended the tendrils of power and soothed the bruises on the side of her face.

She left her neck alone. The tickle of it was novel and it made the puppy feel big and powerful. She had an appreciation for illusions.

She watched, amused, the pulse in the boy's throat pick up speed while she healed herself. She could see him debating whether or not this show of magic was worth asserting himself over.

He locked his eyes on hers. They were very pretty, blue and glittering with anger. She'd let him keep them.

"Where are we?" He demanded. When she ignored him he widened the cut a little more and blood started to wet her hair.

"A conjured place," She grinned, deciding it would be more fun to tell him. "Do you know what happens to conjured things when the conjurer dies?" She slowly writhed in the chains, pressing her breasts against the links and canting her hips up just a bit, just enough to be noticed.

His angry stare didn't falter but the tips of his ears started turning red.

Adorable.

She'd leave him alive after teaching him his place.

She pursed her lips and made a loud 'pop' sound, widening her eyes and flexing her fingers sharply, implying an explosion.

He swallowed, understanding. Good boy, she thought approvingly.

"Then again, dying isn't the only thing that dismantles a conjured thing. Really, it only takes a thought." She wrinkled her nose coquettishly.

"You won't destroy this… place, with you inside of it." He said. And he was right; that would be foolish. The void had made Loki weak and stupid; she didn't want to test would it would do to her.

"Oh poppet," She giggled, "Who said I was going to dismantle this place?"

She struck her hand up through the dust that had been the chains and grabbed his wrist. A twist, a crack, and he dropped – oh, a stone shard. That's what it had been – onto the bed with a howl of pain.

"Shhh, shh shhh," She whispered, yanking him by his broken wrist until he was on the bed under her.

He thrashed, fighting like a landed fish and Amora rode his bucking body with a grin.

He threw himself forward and broke her nose with his forehead.

She slapped a hand to her damaged face, tears springing to her eyes automatically.

She climbed off of him and waved a hand to secure him to the bed.

She traced fingers along the thin bone in her nose, feeling the place where the pain flared the brightest right where the line broke. She pressed it, feeling blood gush from her nostrils.

Her mouth curled in disgust. She turned her back to the boy and spent a moment healing herself. Her clothes were stained with blood and honey and vomit. She checked her pocket to see if any of the tubes had survived her rough handling. She withdrew the thin, broken sheaths and dropped them to the floor. It took a few waves of her hand to get them to fall, the honey sticking them to her skin.

She slipped off the stained clothes and put her hands down against the floor, pulling gently against the stone until it flexed, malleable in her hands, into a large tub. Creating enough hot water to fill it was an expense of energy but, still, the prospect of a bath was too enticing.

She settled into it gladly, sighing in pleasure.

After a moment she frowned, knowing she was forgetting something.

She looked around the room and landed her eyes on Mjolnir – or, well, apparently _not_-Mjolnir.

"Oh!" She said. She spun around and waved a hand to release the band over the boy's mouth and nose.

He gasped in air desperately, sucking hard and frantic, the skin of his face dark red from asphyxiation.

Amora shrugged and settled back into the bath.

After a while, the sound of his breathing leveled into something less fraught. Amora expected him to talk then, to threaten, to growl.

She looked over curiously when he did none of those things.

The boy met her eyes. His body was relaxed against the chains, not fighting.

Amora could see the red swelling lump of his wrist pinned under a chain and, feeling charitable, sent a thread of power out and knit the bone back together.

He closed his eyes in relief, and when he opened them again the resignation had fallen away to something both wary and grateful.

A few quiet minutes passed, filled only with the sound of his breathing and the gentle lap of water as Amora washed herself.

"What do you want from Thor?" He asked. The aggression had dropped out of his voice. Good. He was learning his place.

Amora tipped her head to wet the blonde tendrils of her hair and rubbed her fingers through it, scrubbing out the blood and honey.

"Nothing. Or very little," She admitted.

The boy thunked his head back against the bed in a show of frustration.

Amora snorted an amused laugh. He really was so cute. She should get him a collar.

She turned around in the bath and pressed her front against the smooth wall. Arms draped on the edge, she settled her chin on them and looked at him.

He looked back. Amora let her eyes follow the firm lines of his body down to where the chains wrapped around his hips and thighs. She rolled her chin against her arms so that her head lay sideways. It might be nice, she thought, to strip him down, stroke him to hardness and take her pleasure from him. He'd likely struggle. He seemed the sort. It would be pointless and it would make his rape all the sweeter.

She took her lower lip between her teeth and bit gently, making it plump and red, and imagined how he'd thrash against the chains, how he'd plead.

The boy had a slightly panicky look about him now. Amora frowned, wondering what had given her thoughts away.

She let the impulse go and stood, naked and wet. The boy _actually_ turned his head away modestly.

No, he wouldn't do. He was too bulky, too short. Too blonde. Not what she really wanted.

"His brother," She said. "The lie-smith. The trickster. The silver-tongued sky walker. Loki."

The last she'd said from between clenched teeth.

She stroked fingers over his cheek, down his neck.

"I'll have him. I'll _have_ him." She hissed, turning the caress into a scratch that left red welts.

The boy cringed and turned his head further away.

Amora smiled at him.

She went back to her clothes, spent some magic to clean them and reform them around her body.

She gave the boy a parting kiss, just at the edge of his jaw.

It was time to go get what was hers.

**Chapter 28**

Clint stared at the wall across from him and was aware, sort of, of Thor talking at him.

The wall dissolved and Clint let Thor lead him through it. Once they were on the other side, he gave in to what he wanted to do and slid to the ground.

He felt sick, though whether it was with relief or betrayal he wasn't sure.

More of Thor's low, rumbly voice. He reached one of his big paws down and it happened to be the one attached to the chain. Clint cringed back from it and Thor stopped. He withdrew and Clint was aware enough to know that he should take pity on the guy; his body language was just oozing a dithering kind of distress.

Footsteps pounded up and Clint knew them, knew who they belonged to.

He looked at Natasha and she faltered, stopping a few meters away from him. Her eyes raked over him, looking, he knew, for injuries. Gretel, Sif, the Warriers Three, they were all behind her.

He huffed a laugh and forced himself back to his feet. He closed the space between them and pulled Natasha into a tight hug.

"He's alive, Tasha." He managed, voice tight with emotions, dropping the words into her ear. His body was thrumming with giddy tension. He was _alive_.

Natasha went stiff. She was completely rigid in his arms.

Clint drew back and looked at her, hands clasped firmly on her shoulders. He couldn't stop the grin from blooming on his face.

"Coulson. I mean," He drew a hand back to thumb at his eyes, "From what I gathered Loki's essentially holding him hostage and I've got to kill Director Fury, but…" He trailed off, joy and relief fading at the look she gave him.

It was… fear. She was afraid.

"Tasha?" He asked.

"I didn't know." She whispered. She cupped his jaw in her hand.

"No," He shook his head slightly and put his hand over hers, "Of course not. Fury would have locked this down, I don't think-"

"What he meant to you." She finished. She stroked her thumb over his cheek. She pulled her hand away and let it fall.

Clint tried to hang on to his confusion.

He tried.

"Tasha?"

She looked away.

"I would have told you." She said. "Clint," She met his eyes briefly. She looked miserable and a reflexive part of him wanted to comfort her. "I would have _told_ you."

He swallowed, hard.

She reached for him again and he turned his head away, not pulling back, not quite, but making it plain that he didn't want her to touch him just then.

"I knew you were friends, that he was your trusted handler, but he was that to me as well, Clint. You hid this from me. I did not _know_ you loved him," She said.

He felt a rush of incredulous anger and it must have shown on his face.

Thor took a step forward, hands stretching out, placating, and they both snapped a ferocious look in his direction, warning him to stay out of this.

"You held me, when I-" He stopped and swallowed again. "Tasha, you held me while I cried over him."

"You were worn down from the WSC, from Loki, you were grieving, we were all grieving, I did not _know_." She insisted.

He looked away.

He didn't want to hate her, he _didn't_, but this hit him like a betrayal.

Part of him knew it was irrational. He damn well _had_ kept this a secret.

"I just," Gretel said quietly. It felt like an interruption even though they'd been silent for long seconds. "Sorry, making sure I'm following this – you found out the… ah, person you love is alive and," She glanced between them, "Instead of getting Thor to take you to them, you're bitching at her for not telling you sooner?" She jerked a thumb at Natasha.

Natasha inhaled to say something but Gretel cut her off.

"You're both stupid. Can we agree to that? Can we get a move on please?"

She waved an imperious hand at Thor who, getting confirming looks from Clint and Natasha, made the armory wall disappear again.

Clint was fairly sure he caught a muttered comment about 'mortals' before the wall came back up.

Clint laughed. It was a spasm of a sound and it surprised him.

"I'm still killing Fury," He said, scrubbing hands over his face.

He could see Natasha leveling a look at him from his periphery but she didn't say anything.

He probably wouldn't actually kill Fury. For one, Fury was a badass and killing him would probably be a lot of effort and for two, Coulson liked Fury.

And what Coulson liked was suddenly relevant in the present tense again.

The knowledge bubbled through him, not quite real yet.

Gretel was right – he was being stupid. Coulson first, everything else later.

Thor emerged from the treasure room, tesseract in hand. He raised an eyebrow at Clint and Clint knew he was smiling at him widely.

"I assume I'm using the son of Coul as my anchor point?" Thor asked Natasha.

She nodded briskly, stretching her fingers out to grab the offered handle.

Clint settled his hand next to hers, letting their fingers brush. She met his eyes tentatively, still somewhat closed off.

He admitted to himself that he was still angry and would be for a while.

But they'd get past this.

Gretel closed her hand next to his.

Thor started to turn to the Warriers Three whom Clint belatedly noticed were still standing there.

Thor paused, looked at Clint through wary, narrow eyes and stretched his chained hand away from him before turning completely to address them.

"If Heimdall has not spoken to Odin on this yet, pray convince him to hold his silence. I would not see Clint Barton punished for his invasion. No harm was done."

"We'll speak to him, Thor. Travel well and return swiftly." Fandral said.

Thor nodded his thanks and, on a deliberate inhale, he twisted the cage.

They landed heavily on the street and Clint's first awareness was of a car horn blaring at them, the car swerving and hitting Thor.

The blond god grunted and took a step forward at the impact, glaring quizzically at the bumper bent around his thigh.

A panicky young man got out of the damaged car and put shocked hands in front of his mouth, eyes buggy and disbelieving as he took them in.

Clint swept an assessment over him – no injuries. He took in their location.

It was the side-street by SHIELD's New York Headquarters.

"I'm so sorry, oh my god, you're Thor! I'm so sorry Thor!" The guy was babbling. He looked early twenties and was wearing, of all the damn things, an Iron Man t-shirt.

"Be at peace; this is not the first time such has happened to me." Thor soothed. "Although I fear I have damaged your vehicle."

Gretel was staring at everything, full-hayseed style.

He met Natasha's eyes and the quiet agreement there superseded their conflict and pulled from a long shared history of thinking on their feet.

They needed to get this off the street, pronto.

It was a side-street, which was a small mercy in that at least the attention they were gathering was small. But it was growing the longer they stayed there.

Clint glanced at the building beside them. It looked like a normal office building and Clint knew they'd attracted too much attention to just waltz in there. It would compromise SHIELD's security and while the knowledge that he was heading towards Coulson pounded through him he wasn't desperate enough to be reckless quite yet.

"You couldn't have dropped us inside?" He hissed to Thor, quietly.

Thor gave him an apologetic look.

"It must be open air." He said.

"What?" The guy tilted his head.

Natasha stepped forward and put a hand on the guy's shoulder in a gesture of friendly comfort.

Clint bit the corners of his mouth because he would put good money on the fact that Natasha had just applied a sedative patch to his neck.

"Sir," Natasha said with a convivial smile. "Please return to your car. We'll have someone out to help with the damages and see you on your way in just a moment."

The young man looked at his bent bumper and Clint could see his movements already getting sluggish.

"Oh," He said, "That might be a good," He paused, "Oh, I'm not..."

He put a hand on his forehead and Natasha gripped his elbow gently, helping him back to his car.

He passed out once he sat down.

"Thor," Natasha said, dropping the mask and becoming coldly professional again. She made sure the car was in park and, after peeling off the patch, closed the driver-side door. "Can you get us to the roof?"

Thor looked from the unconscious man to Natasha and frowned in disapproval.

She gave him a challenging look.

"Not… easily. You will have to hold on to me." He pulled Mjolnir from his belt and indicated his full hands.

"Just take Gretel – Clint and I can make our own way. I'll send someone to let you in," She said. "This will take a minute."

Gretel shook herself and stopped staring at the car to look from Natasha to Thor.

Thor held out his arm, crooked in welcome.

Gretel sized up the building.

She twitched her head and cracked her neck.

"Okay, sure, let's do this." She said. She stepped into Thor's space and he closed his arm around her, pulling her against his body.

He spun the hammer and launched them.

Clint gave Gretel props for at least somewhat repressing the frightened noise being thrown into the air by a magical hammer invoked.

Natasha pulled her comm unit off her belt and flicked it open.

"We need containment on the West side of NYHQ. Odinson is on the roof with an ambassador."

A pause while someone on the other side, probably Sitwell, replied.

"We have him," Natasha said, answering whatever she was asked. They were walking at a brisk pace around the back of the building. They'd circle around to the other side and hopefully they'd have shaken any onlookers by then.

"Confirmed," Natasha said and clicked the device shut.

People were still staring at them curiously when they rounded the other side and Clint couldn't really blame them. Natasha in her body armor and himself in a leather duster, steam punk gun strapped to his back… even in New York, they were going to get some attention.

The interest was mild enough that Clint judged it worth the risk.

The side entrance brought them into a security corridor that opened into the cubicle farm of SHIELD's office façade. Clint didn't really pay attention as Natasha wove them through the building.

He followed her through checkpoint after checkpoint until they reached R&D levels that Clint knew his own ID wouldn't get him through.

Natasha's ID did. She'd obviously been here before.

Clearly she hadn't just been in the know.

They walked into a medical wing of R&D and Clint's throat felt tight, his mouth dry.

When Natasha opened yet another locked door and gestured him inside, Clint found himself looking at Phil before he'd really accepted the possibility.

He… well, 'whimpered' would be the word for it but he knew Natasha wouldn't hold it against him.

Phil's hand was cool and soft when he picked it up.

He raked his eyes over Coulson's body, taking in the stress-lines around his eyes and the tight set of his jaw, the tubes and machinery, the wrinkles in the white blanket.

He stared at the uneven tent of the sheets over Coulson's feet. It was lopsided because Coulson was missing the two smallest toes on his left foot and that detail was what finally made this click in his head.

The unreality dropped away and he clutched Coulson's hand so hard he knew the man would have objected if he'd been awake.

If he'd been awake.

"Loki…" Clint said the name softly. "He said that when he," Clint forced the words out, "Stabbed Phil, he used the staff to take control of him. Not like he did with me or Selvig, but, to get him out of the way. Loki said he stays out of the way because he's 'given him no new commands.'"

Clint looked at the little cactus on the bedside table. He wondered if Natasha had brought it in.

"He must be fighting it," Natasha said quietly. Clint saw her nod at Phil in his periphery and he could see what she meant. Phil looked far too tense to be simply comatose.

Christ, Loki had been months ago. He'd been like this for months.

"Cognitive reboot?" She said. She walked over to stand beside him and put her hand on Coulson's misshapen foot.

"It was tried. It didn't work." Fury said.

Clint spun. The man stood in the open doorway, regarding him calmly and unapologetically.

Clint landed a solid punch across the man's jaw. Fury let him do it, not moving to defend himself. Clint threw another and Fury ducked, spinning him into a pin against the door.

"Agent Barton," Fury said, voice cool and controlled and not letting up the hold he had on Clint in the slightest. "Welcome back."

"Thank you, sir," Clint grunted, trying to hook a foot behind Fury's and throw him off. Fury neatly shifted his hold to avoid the maneuver without letting Clint up.

"How was Asgard?" Fury asked blandly.

"Oh, you know," Clint grunted back. "Full of lens flare." He threw his shoulders back, trying to dislodge the man. Fury moved back with him and slammed them both forward all the harder to compensate.

Clint thunked his head forward against the door. He could have fought more. He let himself relax instead.

Fury held them still for a moment longer before he withdrew. Clint considered going for him again but decided not to.

Clint turned to look at the three of them, eyes automatically locking on Coulson. Natasha had settled on the mattress by his feet, Fury moving to stand by the base of the bed.

"Sir, in the effort of full disclosure, I am very fucking angry at you right now." He said.

Fury raised an eyebrow. His jaw was already swelling.

"Noted, agent."

"Talk to me," Clint barked, keeping his eyes on Coulson's face. Phil looked tired and worn down and it made Clint ache.

Fury's eyebrow rose higher, making it clear he wasn't impressed with being given an order.

"Pierced lung, laceration in his right ventricle. It took sixteen hours of surgery," Natasha said. She ran her fingers over the bridge of Coulson's foot. "And, evidently at some point, he also got punched in the head." Natasha looked at Fury.

"He's been unconscious since the event, but brain scans show activity." Fury finished. "As Agent Romanov has explained why the continued secrecy is necessary, let's move on to the part where _you_ talk to _me_."

"Haven't gotten that far yet, sir." Natasha admitted.

Fury did nothing for a second, then closed his eye and silently exhaled they way he often did around Stark.

"Stark and Rogers, right?" Clint said. He could see it. In a he-really-wanted-to-punch-Fury-again way there was even something admirable in the ruthless effectiveness of the plan.

Fury nodded.

"Why wasn't I brought in?" He asked. He hated how thin his voice sounded. He clenched his fists and cleared his throat. He was goddamn better than this.

"You'd been compromised. The plan was to bring you in after things had settled down and you could be reassessed."

"So you were planning to tell me at some point? What about when we bring him back, do we get to know then?" He snarled. He inhaled sharply and squeezed his fists tighter. Get a grip, asshole.

Fury narrowed his eye.

"You have intel on his condition?" Fury asked. Fury held up a stalling hand and dragged a chair over from the wall. He indicated that Clint should sit in the seat next to Coulson.

"Start from the top, Agent."

**Chapter 29**

Chapter Notes

:D I love you, Hoursago!

More art:

post/45316479062/hard-to-believe-there-are-two-of- this-exact

Natasha stroked Coulson's foot and listened to Clint debrief with Fury.

Clint's eyes kept drifting to Coulson and Natasha accepted that she couldn't really imagine what it must be like for him.

She knew Clint, knew he still carried guilt for the people he'd unwillingly killed in the assault on the helicarrier. He'd probably counted Coulson in their numbers.

To have him back – to _love_ him and have him back…

It was outside of her skill-set.

Fury was calm and calculating as he took in Clint's story. Natasha knew he noticed the obsessive attention Clint laved on Coulson and wondered if Fury had figured out there was more there than friendship.

She wanted to believe he hadn't. She wanted to believe that if he'd known he wouldn't have ordered Natasha's silence.

"So, Amora gives us Hansel back in exchange for access to Loki, Thor let's Amora 'close a channel in Loki's brain,' what_ever_ the fuck, Amora's happy and goes away, Loki's… don't care, still imprisoned, and Coulson..." Clint trailed off, hands flexing in his lap. He shook himself slightly. "Win-win-win." He finished.

Clint flicked his trench coat and Natasha barely held back a snort when Fury did the same.

"We need more intel on what exactly Loki gets out of this. Odinson should be finished debriefing with Sitwell by now," He said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "He's likely sitting with the specialist we flew in."

"Where's Gretel?" Clint asked. He didn't show any signs of moving after Fury stood.

"With any luck, not with Stark." Fury said darkly. Natasha smiled. Any time Stark felt a need to visit HQ, it usually ended badly.

Natasha slid off the bed and gave Clint a pointed look when he continued to sit.

"Unless your brain came with an access card attached, Agent, you'd better follow us." Fury said, voice bland.

Clint looked at Coulson lingeringly, but stood and followed them out.

Natasha ignored the way his hands started shaking when the door closed and locked.

Fury touched the comm on his ear.

"We're assembling in 3R in 20."

"The team's here?" Natasha asked.

"Rogers and Banner are on the way over." Fury said, glancing at Natasha significantly. "We called them in when we got word you'd arrived at an unplanned location."

"Plans change." Clint said flatly. His knuckles were a little red from that punch. Natasha saw him turn his head away from the locked door and firm his jaw in determination. She smiled at him, proud and affectionate.

He slanted his eyes away from her, rubbing his nose to cover the rejection.

He was still angry at her.

Natasha accepted that.

She would be patient.

Stark was haranguing one of the research assistants in the outer wing of R&D when they came through. He spotted Fury and Clint and stopped mid-sentence, cocking his head.

"You two look adorable." The man grinned.

Clint smiled back, holding open the edge of his coat with a healthy bit of self-mockery.

"You wish you were this fabulous." He declared. Fury's eye twitched.

Stark snorted a laugh and beamed at him.

"Good to have you back, birdbrain."

"Stark, get the hell out of my labs," Fury demanded.

Stark shot him a wounded look.

"Why? Are you afraid I'll steal your research in repulsor technology?" He said, waving a hand at the assistant who was clearly desperate to edge away. "Oh wait," Stark continued, snapping his fingers sarcastically, "That one's the other way around, isn't it?" He gave Fury an unimpressed look.

Fury ignored him, turning instead to the assistant.

"Shut the lab down and have it swept for bugs. And let Walters know Stark's gotten through the door locks again."

"Yeah, I'd missed this," Clint said dryly.

"Aw, we missed you too, pumpkin." Stark said, falling into step beside them and trailing after Fury.

Clint turned to her and mouthed 'pumpkin?,' face squinched up in disapproval.

She mouthed 'birdbrain?' back at him, eyebrow raised in pointed question. Of course Clint would make more of an issue with the endearment than the insult.

"Mind you, your counterpart is delightful and I really want to keep him. He's about as good at a bow as, well, Butterfingers, but the boy can take apart a toaster with the best of them," Stark rattled on. Clint looked surprised.

Stark's eyes latched onto the strap across Clint's chest and he circled smoothly behind him, stealing a look at the gun.

"Ohhhh, Hammertech that is not." Clint kept walking and Stark trailed after him, eyes raking over the weapon and mentally picking it apart.

Thor's voice drifted out from the cafeteria and Fury changed their path to intercept.

"But what I don't get," Came a female voice, somewhat petulantly, "Is how I _already know about her_. I mean, how old are you? Did the thing with the candy house happen like, hundreds of years ago?"

"No," Gretel's voice replied. "And twenty-six." She sounded amused.

SHIELD's cafeteria spanned half the floor and had chefs on staff since catering would have been a security nightmare. The city was visible through the wall of windows. Natasha thought it might rain later.

The group looked up when they turned the corner. The four of them occupied a table in the middle of an otherwise sparse dining area. There were a few groups of juniors dotted about. Natasha made a note to have their surveillance training amped up because the obviousness with which they were staring at Thor was embarrassing.

Natasha recognized Doctor Foster. The fact that she was nearly sitting in Thor's lap made the connection all the faster. The brunette sitting across from them gave them a cheerful wave with a hand still holding a fork.

Gretel smiled at Clint widely when she saw him and her shoulders drooped a little in relief.

"Director Fury," Thor said, looking between him and Clint. "I see you survived."

Stark stopped examining the gun on Clint's back and raised his eyebrows at that.

"It's classified, Thor." Fury said blandly.

Stark looked even more curious but Thor continued before he could ask.

"My Lady Jane informs me she is here at your request. You have my thanks."

Jane was not-staring at Stark and blushing, star-struck and trying to hide it.

Stark grinned playfully at her.

"You're Doctor Foster, aren't you?" He chirped. He went on talking before she could answer. "I have to say, the research you're doing into Einstein-Rosen bridges is fascinating. And your picture doesn't do you justice." He extended his hand and Jane took it, still blushing.

Stark turned to the other girl.

"You, I don't know, but you have excellent taste in sweaters," Stark put out his hand to her as well.

The sweater in question was an ugly green and beige striped thing.

It also hugged the girl's assets rather noticeably.

The girl gave Stark an insouciant smirk that plainly said she was on to him and thought it was hilarious.

"Darcy," She introduced herself. "I'm Jane's talk-absorber."

"She's my lab assistant," Doctor Foster corrected, rolling her eyes affectionately.

"Aw, you just got demoted," Stark said, taking the seat next to Darcy. "I had to build an AI to be my talk-absorber after the fleshy models gave out on me. It's an under-appreciated skill."

Darcy smiled toothily at him.

"That's me, pop-tart gopher and attentive nodder to Casimir-effect -babble."

"Mr. Odinson, we need to discuss-" Fury started but Darcy cut him off. Her boldness made Stark smile even wider.

"No, no, no, we were talking about a thing and we're not brushing past this, c'mon, how do we all know the Hansel and Gretel story? Thor?" The girl insisted. She pushed her glasses up her nose and crossed her arms across her generous chest.

Thor hesitated for a beat too long, then cleared his throat and squared himself.

"It is, I think, known to you all that our warriors go into battle knowing the tales of our deeds will echo, remembered long after we fall. There is a power in deeds and stories that transcend the limitations you may think to ascribe to them."

He had a shifty look about him. Natasha didn't buy it.

"Bullshit." Stark said flatly, but he was smiling.

Thor deflated.

"I had wished to avoid offense, for none," He assured Jane, looking so earnest and worried that Natasha sort of wanted to squeeze his cheeks, "Is intended."

Doctor Foster tipped her head at him quizzically.

"Midgard as it is now is… strange." He said apologetically. He fiddled with the handle of the tesseract. "There are mages in Vanaheimr who are not so sewn into to the normal weave of time. It is possible one of them brought the story to Midgard when visiting a century less… confusing than this one. Or perhaps they simply told of the future they saw when they visited here in the relative past."

He looked at Gretel.

"It is indeed a good tale, Lady Gretel."

"Mr. Odinson," Fury began again. He'd shifted into his do-not-fuck-with-me mode and Darcy spread her fingers in surrender. There was boldness and then there was stupidity. "Tabling the time-traveling aliens for the minute, we have more immediate matters to discuss."

"Not that this guy isn't a handsome devil, but I'd kinda like to get back to myself," Clint added, framing his jaw with his fingers.

"Of course," Thor said, rising. He took Jane's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

Jane dimpled.

"Should we stay here?" She asked.

Thor looked to Fury, who nodded.

"When you finish lunch, head back to Sitwell." Fury said. He turned without waiting for acknowledgment and started heading for the conference room.

"So, why were you going to kill Fury? And did you punch him? He looks punched, and that looks like a punching hand." Stark said, nodding at Clint's red knuckles.

Clint shrugged.

"We have an agreement to take care of each other's houseplants if the other is compromised. The director let my pothos wither."

Stark stink-eyed him.

"I would see the son of Coul. I mourned him as well," Thor said quietly as they walked.

Stark's steps faltered.

"We can take you to the memorial later." Clint said smoothly, without hesitation.

Thor gave him a disapproving look but thankfully held his silence.

Natasha kept her face blank and knew that Fury would have his own poker-face in place.

Stark had a squinty, distrustful look about him and Natasha knew he'd been hacking SHIELD later.

She trusted Fury to have Coulson's existence strictly offline and hard-copied only.

Besides, she suspected it may well come out in the upcoming meeting.

Rogers and Banner were already in the conference room when they arrived.

"Gentlemen," Fury greeted, "That was fast."

Banner scrubbed a hand over his mouth. He looked a little green, but in a nauseous way, not a rage-monster way.

"We took my motorcycle, sir." Rogers explained.

"Never again. I don't think they had traffic rules in the 40s." Banner said.

Rogers looked at him with innocent confusion and Natasha bit back a snort.

"Clint," Banner said, "Good to have you back."

"Ish," Clint agreed.

"We've missed your eyes," Rogers said, smiling warmly at him. "We really could have used you in these last few skirmishes."

"I've only been gone for a few days," Clint accused, settling into the seat next to Banner. He sat on the edge to allow for his gun.

Banner tipped his head at Clint.

"You really do look exactly the same. That's uncanny."

"There are differences," Clint said.

Rogers raised an eyebrow but Clint glanced away, pretending not to see the question on the Captain's face.

Stark smiled and Natasha glared.

Gretel, beside Clint, started tweaking one of the wires on her crossbow. Stark leaned forward.

"Does that rotate?" He asked, voice pitched high with incredulity.

Gretel glanced at him, then thumbed a switch and the bow swiveled around, pointing arrows at 180 degrees from each other.

Clint shook his head.

"Seriously, Gretel, how often does that come up that you felt the need to make a bow for it?"

"Hansel made it. And often enough," She said darkly.

"There have been several incidents caused by Amora." Fury said, cutting through the banter. "Amora wants to see Loki. From Agent Barton's debrief, it sounds like that's mutual. It seems to me that there's a very easy solution to our problem."

"Mutual?" Thor asked Clint.

"When I talked to him, he said he wanted Amora to close a channel in his mind."

"When did you see Loki?" Stark asked.

Clint shrugged.

"He grabbed the chain and dove in." Natasha said.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?"

"I'm assuming he wasn't chained with his children's intestines while a serpent drips venom in his face or you would have mentioned it." Bruce said, eyebrows making it a question.

"It looked like house arrest, which, what. But he looked like shit. Being striped of his powers clearly isn't suiting him." Clint smiled.

"The channel in his mind - can you explain that, Thor? What is Loki getting out of this?" Fury asked before the blond god could comment on Clint's somewhat tactless enjoyment of his brother's suffering.

Thor looked at Fury.

"I would consult with him, but it would have to wait until I return to Asgard," He said, lifting the tesseract apologetically.

Fury looked at him expectantly.

"But," Thor said, and his tone went soft and sad. "An ailment of his mind. It... He is taken over as though with nightmares, in sleep and waking both."

"And we're assuming this isn't just, you know, a result of guilt?" Stark asked, surprisingly gently.

"I had thought so," Thor said, in a tone that clearly said he didn't think so now.

Thor looked at Clint.

"If he asks to have part of his mind closed, it would suggest the nightmares come from outside of himself. Forgive my asking, but this is the only path I see that leads this question to you - did he show a mental bond with the Chitauri?"

Clint took on a pinched, unhappy look, as he always did when the Chitauri were mentioned.

He looked at his hands on the table.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts.

Nobody pushed him. Clint didn't like talking about what happened.

"He would go into these meditations sometimes," Clint said quietly. "He'd lose his spacial awareness. We would guard him. He didn't come out of them easily and was mean when he did. One of the mercenaries tried to give him a hand up when his emergence knocked him over." He laughed, once, humorlessly. "It was a stupid thing to do."

Clint went silent, still staring at his hands.

He shifted uncomfortably.

"Thor," Fury said, "Would you be amenable to letting Amora see Loki?"

"I am charged to keep his prison and bar its access from all save myself and Odin." Thor said gravely.

He met their eyes.

"Yes," He said, determination plain, "I'm amenable."

**Chapter 30**

"We must act quickly," Thor said quietly, looking at the tesseract. "The sooner this is done, the less chance anyone from Asgard can conjure themselves here and put a stop to this."

"Can't you use the tesseract and just, ffft," Stark asked, gesturing at the cube. "Go to him?"

Thor shook his head.

"Hansel is unknown to me. And Amora will have herself cloaked. She must be found by other means."

Fury nodded.

"Banner," His dark eye flicked to the scientist.

Banner adjusted his glasses and leaned forward, pulling a tablet out of his bag.

"We've been able to use Loki's staff to isolate an energy signature. Since Amora's been sticking to a relatively small geographical field, we were able to put a net in place that'll sound an alarm when that signature pops up again."

He held the tablet up, showing a map of New York. Beside him, Gretel made a surprised sound. Steve understood where she was coming from – tablets were a remarkable bit of technology.

"The red dots?" Steve asked, pointing at the two beacons lit on the screen.

"Loki's staff and Hawkeye." Banner explained. "Probably also Thor and the tesseract. They're close enough together that they're probably regestering as the same dot." He wiggled his fingers between them.

"When that alarm goes off, you need to be ready to move immediately. You need to take this fight to her so that we can control the surveillance." Fury said.

"Thor," Steve said, "You're on point for this. Keep her talking, let her know quickly that we're willing to negotiate and do whatever you can to keep her from creating an incident. Make sure you get Hansel back before you let her see Loki."

"I will do these things," Thor agreed. "However, when she is delivered to Loki, I will need your assistance."

Steve blinked and tipped his head, silently asking Thor to elaborate.

"I cannot take the tesseract into Loki's prison," Thor said solemnly. "And I will not leave my brother with Amora unattended. I will lay my trust with you all. When it comes to this, I would ask you to guard the tesseract."

"Of course," Steve agreed immediately. He looked at the others for confirmation.

"I have a secure place we can put it," Stark said. He drummed his fingers on his arc reactor absently. "Assuming you don't want to leave it with SHIELD again."

"I do not," Thor said simply.

Fury raised an eyebrow at that but, oddly, or perhaps wisely, didn't object.

"So, Thor engages. He negotiates for Hansel. Amora gets her ten with Loki. Loki fixes the trick he played with Amora's ability to teleport and Amora stops the Chitauri from talking to Loki. Thor takes Amora, Hansel, Clint and Gretel back to Asgard and Thor's mother puts the boys back in their rightful bodies, Thor takes everyone home… am I missing anything?" Steve rattled off, ticking each point off on his fingers.

"I will likely face punishment when I return to Asgard," Thor said quietly.

"I'll be with you," Clint said. Steve took in the stern, nearly angry set of his jaw. "I'll defend your choice here, Thor. You're acting as a prince of Asgard and an ambassador and taking steps to ensure the safety of your protectorate."

Steve wasn't the only one who looked at Clint curiously at that. They weren't used to him speaking so seriously.

"I don't know if my world falls under your protection too, Thor, but," Gretel nodded at Clint. "What he said."

Thor looked between the two of them.

"I thank you," He said, voice soft with sincerity.

"There is one other element to this that you should all be aware of," Fury said.

Steve watched Clint tense and shoot the man a wary look.

"Loki is also maintaining a mental link with one of our agents. Part of the condition of allowing him to see Amora was for him to release a hold he has that has been keeping one of our agents in what is effectively a coma. It's a hold he's been maintaining since his assault on the helicarrier."

"You," Stark said slowly, narrowing his eyes, "Son of a bitch."

He flicked a glance at Clint. "This is why you punched him, isn't it? Is that option still on the table, because I'm feeling a pretty strong compunction to follow suit." It came out in almost a growl.

"Inadvisable," Fury said warningly.

Coulson. It clicked in Steve's head suddenly and he inhaled sharply.

"Do you have any idea how sad you've made Pepper?" Stark continued, hands stabbing at the air angrily. "She visited the memorial, you know. She _cried_ over him."

Fury met his glare calmly, unapologetically.

"He isn't back yet," Fury said.

"But he's not fucking dead, you unmitigated asshole!" Stark yelled. He looked around the table at them all and then his back straightened, a new thought seizing him.

"Was I the last to know?" He sounded thrown by this, hurt.

"No," Steve told him, "No, this is the first I'm hearing of it."

"Why aren't you angrier?" The man glared. Steve knew he wasn't really angry at him and let it slide.

"I'm furious," He said evenly. "But now isn't the time."

Stark shook his head at him and then looked at Clint, who was watching him with steadily.

"And what about you? I saw the tattoo, Clint. How are you not seething?"

Clint winced, so very slightly.

"You saw it?"

"Hansel wanted to know what it meant," Bruce said quietly.

"Tattoo?" Fury asked. His eye fixed on Clint and the archer squirmed.

"Look, it doesn't matter, okay? Can we just do the thing?" He asked, clearly uncomfortable.

Steve frowned, part of him torn between curiosity over the tattoo and wanting to leave it alone as Clint obviously wanted them to.

The rest of him was reeling from the knowledge that the sweet, awkward man that had hero-worshiped him was alive. Steve had felt terrible when he'd learned of the man's death. It had been his fault, clinging to bullheaded prickliness instead of working with his team. Good people had died because he'd been slow getting his head out of his ass.

Absurdly, Steve felt a rush of guilt that he still hadn't signed the man's cards. He wondered where the bloodstained things were now.

"What happens to Amora?" Gretel asked. They looked at her, and Steve realized her outburst was designed to take attention away from Clint.

Probably the others realized as well. That didn't mean it didn't work.

"I mean, at the end of this. What happens to her? She screwed with us and brought monsters into your city and she's kidnapped my brother. God knows what she's doing to him. What's going to happen to her? From the impressions I got of Asgard, I don't think you burn witches there."

Thor looked mildly disturbed.

"Indeed not. She will go on trial before the hall and my father shall enact a punishment that is just."

"More house arrest?" Clint asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

Thor gave him an unhappy look. Clint closed his mouth in a tight line and looked away.

"We should head back to the Tower. Get into gear, prep the quinjet. When this happens, it'll be fast," Steve said, then looked to Fury. "Unless you have anything else to add, sir."

"I want to see Coulson," Stark said, crossing his arms.

"He's in a coma."

"It's appalling that you really think that makes a difference."

"Stark, we-" Clint started.

"Shut it, pothos." The billionaire snapped, not looking away from Fury.

Clint rolled his eyes in a show of temper and stood.

"Look, we don't have time to dick around, okay? I'd really like to not have to go through the WSC's inquisition again. Okay? I really don't want to." Clint's voice had gone tight and Steve saw Natasha press her lips together. Steve wasn't the only one angry about the week following the battle of New York.

Stark looked at Clint and let go of his anger all at once, deflating, body language turning apologetic.

"I'm-"

"Shut it, Stark," Clint said, and there was affection in his voice.

"Coulson will be moved to Stark Tower," Fury said. "I'll transfer his medical staff with him, if that's acceptable."

Stark gave him a long look, and nodded.

"Let's suit up." Stark said. "Between the witch hunt and calling Pepper, armor sounds like a great idea."

Gretel stared out of the windows of Stark Tower's sixty-fourth floor. Thor and Stark had gone down to one of the lab floors to secure the tesseract. Steve thought it might be in the same place as Loki's staff and Stark's back-up arc reactors, but wondered if the man would want to keep them separate.

Clint and Natasha were downstairs preparing a room for Coulson. He wasn't sure where Darcy, Jane and Banner were but he thought it might be in the labs.

That left just Gretel and Steve by themselves.

She was easier to be around that Steve would have thought. Honestly, she reminded him of Natasha more than passingly.

Steve was in his uniform and had the shield propped against the couch at his feet.

The sun was setting and it made the city that much more impressive.

Gretel's hand came up and touched the glass, eyes riveted on the sprawl of buildings and lights below.

Steve opened his sketchbook and started blocking in the shape of her body, the slim lines of her hand against the window. He was in the last third of this sketchbook. It had always been something he'd done when he had time on his hands, waiting for a conflict to start. The book was full of his teammates, the city, Pepper, the helicarrier.

He was starting to feel the need to draw the people he'd lost less and less.

"Did Hansel see this?" Gretel asked, gently breaking the companionable silence.

Steve looked up.

"He did. He hated it, actually. He wasn't a fan of the height." Steve said, sweeping his pencil and capturing her braid.

She laughed, a low, husky sound that Steve rather liked. Her voice suited her.

Peggy would have loved Gretel – another warrior woman in field dominated by men.

He drew the lines of her hips and the flare of her sleeves.

"As often as he gets dragged upwards, that's surprising," She confided, smiling.

She looked out of the window for a few more minutes, then sighed and crossed the floor. She sat down next to him, invading his space casually and trying to steal a glimpse at his sketchbook.

Steve tilted it up and away automatically. It was a habit developed from living with nosy people, only half of whom had the excuse of being professional spies.

She arched an eyebrow at him and after a moment he capitulated, turning the book so she could see the quick sketch. He had her mouth outlined but not her eyes and Steve blushed, belatedly realizing that drawing her might come off as presumptuous.

"Wow," She said, wrinkling her nose and grinning, "You're really good. My talent begins and ends with stick-figure dogs that look like malformed badgers."

He smiled back and couldn't think of anything to say to that.

She settled against the couch, propping her feet up on the coffee table and part of Steve wanted to fuss and tell her to take her shoes off at least if she was going to do that, but he decided to let it go.

"I'm sorry," Steve said. At her inquiring look he coughed and continued. "For... my part in getting your brother kidnapped by a psychotic witch."

Gretel gave him a commiserating look.

She shrugged.

"It happens." She told him. "Usually it's me. I'm pretty sure it was his turn."

Steve laughed, surprised.

He took a breath to reply, feeling oddly light and flirtatious.

The lights in the room went red. Of course they did.

"Captain," Jarvis said. "Amora is back."

**Chapter 31**

Hansel's body ached.

The skin on his right forearm itched like a motherfucker. There had been honey on the bed from Amora and he'd landed in it when she threw him back here. It was pulling at the hairs on his arm as it dried and he couldn't maneuver enough to scratch at it or rub it off against the sheets.

Yeah, he thought, glaring angrily and helplessly at the ceiling, this was _so_ much better than Fury's threat of leaving him tied to a bed.

He rotated his not-broken wrist.

Amora was crazy. Like, beyond even what was standard for a witch. She made his skin crawl. She looked at him like he was something to eat and while it had hardly been the first time he'd gotten that response from a witch, Amora's stare had genuinely unsettled him.

He was obscurely glad that it was himself here and not his sister. They'd both attacked her, after all. It was just a cosmic coincidence that he'd been the one with the double and not her.

Gretel probably still would have brained Amora with a hammer, though, if their positions had been reversed.

He squirmed. As much as he was able to.

The chains were so tight he thought they were bruising him. He really wasn't going to be able to get out of these.

Amora hadn't been gone longer than ten minutes when she reappeared.

He stiffened as she all but danced her way over to him. Generally he liked seeing women smile but on Amora it made him want to pull a weapon.

She tugged at the chain over his hip and the links dissolved. He grunted with the release of pressure. God, he was sore.

Amora grabbed him by the throat and pulled him up. He struggled awkwardly, his body not quite cooperating with him, and closed his hands around her deceptively delicate wrist to fight her from crushing his neck.

"Relax, sweetheart," She cooed. "Be a good little piece of collateral." She kissed his mouth, hard and invasive.

He bit her tongue when she shoved it inside and she shook him roughly.

She was giggling when she drew back.

"Oh, I should keep you. You're just too much fun. I could spend years teaching your place."

She threw him hard enough into the wall that he bounced back and fell to his knees, winded. _Fuck_ that had hurt.

She brought both her hands up and Hansel braced himself.

A smokey green column formed and resolved itself into… Hansel.

The illusion flickered and smeared at the edges.

Amora bit her thumb and regarded his double with a frown of displeasure. She waved her hands and it dissolved.

"Could never get them as good as…" She groused quietly.

Her eyes slid back to him.

"Fine," She said petulantly and grabbed him roughly – by the shoulder this time, at least.

She turned them and the world spun in melting colors.

It resolved itself into a rooftop.

Of course it had to be a roof.

Hansel's knees wavered. He swallowed and manned up, firming his stance. Amora pulled him back against her body like a shield. It was raining, not too bad yet but there were rumbles of thunder off in the distance.

"Release him, Amora," A deep voice said.

Thor.

Amora pursed her lips. Her nails were digging into his shoulder again and he suppressed a wince with effort.

"What guarantee do I have that you'll let me out of the cage afterward, Thor? I think I should hold onto him. In case you decide to prove as traitorous as your kin." She settled her head on his opposite shoulder and nuzzled into his neck. He shivered and cringed away from her. God, she was so skeevy.

"We still need you to undo the magic you've wrought." Thor said calmly. "Release him as a show of good faith."

She scoffed.

"I hardly see why it matters. They look the same to me." She dismissed.

"Nonetheless," Thor said, still in that calm, reasonable tone, "I believe they do not feel the same way."

Amora considered this, humming into the skin below his jaw.

"Leave the hammer here," She said.

Thor nodded agreeably, setting the weapon down. It looked just like the one Hansel had used. No wonder she didn't like it.

"Let him go, Amora."

"I'll let him go when we're done. He comes with me. Pretty little thing." She combed her fingers through his hair playfully, then closed them in a fist and tugged his head to the side, exposing more of his neck.

Hansel rubbed his honey sticky arm against his thigh. It pulled his hair but between the friction and the rain he did manage to make some progress. Amora started sucking a bruise just under his ear and he swallowed bile.

Thor looked unhappy.

"My brother has his own demand," He said.

"Oh?" She chirped, releasing her mouth and leaving his skin red and shiny with spit. He tried to shrug his shoulder and wipe the spot off but she was holding him too firmly.

She jerked his head a little more to the side and rainwater trickled unpleasantly into his ear.

"His mind has a path laid open to the Chitauri. He would have you seal it. In return, he will right what was done to you."

Amora sneered.

"He will right what was done to me or I will take his limbs and leave him crawling like the serpent he is!"

"You will not." Thor said, and there was a clear threat in his voice.

Amora paused.

"Does he suffer, Thor?" She mocked.

"He does." He said sadly.

"And you would have me take that away?"

"This bargain is between the two of you. What I want for Loki stopped mattering some time ago."

"You're pathetic, Thor," Amora spat, clearly disgusted. "Your love for him makes you weak."

Hansel instantly thought of Natasha.

It made him feel ill and, weirdly, guilty.

"Do you agree to his bargain?" Thor asked, jaw tense but otherwise not acknowledging the insult at all.

Amora snorted, unimpressed.

"Very well," She agreed.

Thor nodded and held out his arm.

There was a chain disappearing from the end of a cuff around his wrist. He could feel Amora's attention focused there.

Amora walked them forward and Thor held still and let them approach.

She took her hand out of his hair and glided it up the links until she grasped an invisible portion of it tightly. Hansel could shake his head enough to get the rainwater out of his ear. He'd take what he could get.

Thor met his eyes and smiled at him reassuringly. He returned what he knew must be a long-suffering look.

Amora pulled him inside a… well, inside a stone room passingly similar to the one he'd been stuck it. It was larger and better decorated but it shared that closed-off, underground sort of feeling to it.

Also, this room had a chained man in it. Who wasn't Hansel.

The man didn't react to them at all. He stared into space, green eyes glassy and distant. His body was trembling slightly.

Amora pressed one of her legs between Hansel's and shivered happily, staring at the man.

Thor appeared behind them.

He put one of his large hands on Hansel's arm. Amora glared at him in warning and Thor merely stared back patiently. After a moment she rolled her eyes and released him.

Hansel happily allowed Thor to walk him over to a chair. He sat down gratefully.

The vacant man gasped and spasmed. He barked out a pained cry and seemed to come back to himself.

He noticed them and his face closed off instantly.

Still shaking, he drew himself up, tilting his head arrogantly. It was pitiful how thin that mask was.

"Amora," The man said, brushing hands down his clothes and pretending nothing at all was out of place.

"Loki," Amora said with mock fondness, smiling with too many teeth. Her rain-soaked hair dripped into the floor. "That looked like fun. Tell me, are they very angry with you?"

Loki grinned back at her. He clasped his hands behind himself, no doubt to hide the shaking.

"It's of small matter. But tell me, did you enjoy the trip to Midgard? I have to imagine it was, perhaps, more scenic a route than is your custom."

Amora flexed her fingers and snarled.

"Loki," Thor chided.

Loki shrugged. "I was merely being polite," He lied.

Loki looked over at him and huffed a surprised, genuine laugh, staring at Hansel like he was an object.

"Loki," Thor chided again, more sternly.

"Yes, very well." Loki broke his gaze. He looked at Amora.

"You need to open yourself to me for me to fix you," He said, straight-faced and voice bland but Hansel still thought there was intentional innuendo in there. From Amora's glare, he wasn't the only one hearing it.

Amora stalked over to him and Hansel was embarrassed by the fact that he flinched. She smiled at him, pleased with his reaction, and grabbed the chairs next to him. She dragged them in front of Loki and sat down, spreading her legs more than really necessary and dropping her arms on the chair back. The rain had made the fabric of her bodice obscene.

"Shall we?" She said playfully.

Loki reached his hands forward towards her face.

"Wait," She said, coiling backwards. "Why aren't you demanding your own part of this? The channel in your mind I'm to close?"

Loki smiled, wide and edged with something sharp.

"Believe me," He said, "Once I'm in there, you'll want to of your own accord."

He struck forward and took her face in his palms.

Their eyes snapped shut and they shuddered in sync.

Amora kicked out wildly, catching the leg of Loki's chair.

Thor moved forward, clearly unsure as to whether or not he should interfere.

Loki's lips curled back in a grimace and Amora started squirming in pain.

It lasted for long minutes.

Amora's hands drew up, sluggishly and without coordination. They found Loki's head and cupped it, mirroring his hands on her.

For a taut moment, they were both rigid with obvious pain.

It released all at once, both of them moaning.

Amora fell back into the chair and Loki slid to the ground, unconscious.

"Loki!" Thor cried.

"Oh, leave the wretch be. He hasn't slept in months," Amora said, looking at Loki's crumpled form with revulsion and what might have been pity. She lashed out with a foot and kicked him onto his back.

Loki groaned but didn't wake up.

Thor was between them immediately, glaring at her.

Amora shrugged, unconcerned, and crossed her arms over her chest.

Thor picked the fallen man up and carried him through a doorway. Hansel weighed his options and wondered if he should go after him – he didn't want to be alone with Amora.

Thor reappeared before he could make a decision.

"If you have harmed him," Thor started.

Amora snorted.

"He sleeps, Thor. I've kept my end of the bargain."

"What evidence have I of that?" Thor demanded.

"He sleeps, Thor," Amora repeated slowly, as though talking to an imbecile.

Thor gave her a heavy, considering stare.

Then, accepting it, he nodded.

Amora bounced to her toes, shaking off whatever she'd just gone through and thrumming with energy. She looked at her hands and smiled in obvious pleasure.

"So much better," She said. She was talking to herself.

Hansel cringed. He got his freedom out of this but he still couldn't easily stomach the idea of Amora getting more power.

She flashed her green eyes up to Thor, grinning widely.

"Come, petkin," She said, snapping her fingers at Hansel without looking at him. Hansel gave her back an incredulous look.

Thor met his gaze and tipped his head, holding out his hand.

Hansel rose, aching body protesting, and walked over to Thor.

The man took hold of his shoulder. He saw Amora slither an arm around the blond's waist.

"You need only be touching me," Thor protested.

"I am only touching you," Amora said agreeably. Thor made a huff of protest and Hansel was pretty sure Amora had just grabbed his ass.

Thor growled and looped the chain around his hand.

He pulled them… back onto the rooftop.

It was raining harder, lightening arcing visibly and rain sheeting down thickly.

The rooftop also wasn't empty anymore.

Hansel took in the assembled Avengers and sagged with relief.

Amora began to move away and Thor spun her in his arms, wrapping a loop of the somewhat invisible chain around her tightly.

"Release me!" She shouted.

Steve was holding his shield above his head, keeping both himself and Natasha somewhat out of the rain. Hansel didn't see Bruce but he knew the man would be nearby.

"Release me or they stay bound!" Amora shrieked and waved a pinned hand at him.

Hansel spotted Clint Barton. The man was crouching in a dry spot under a ledge and winked at him from behind his drawn bow. It was beyond weird, but if he was here it meant that Gretel must also be nearby. He felt a knot of tension he'd been carrying abruptly unwind.

"Yeah, about that," Tony said inside his beautiful armor. "Turns out we have a back-up plan."

"Mother," Thor said. Hansel looked at him sharply, catching the alarmed tone in his voice.

"Exactly," Tony confirmed, not noticing. "His – why are you bowing?" Tony paused a moment then added, "Oh, that can't be good."

Tony turned.

A woman stepped onto the rooftop, materializing out of the rain.

She appeared completely untouched by the downpour, otherworldly in her dignity and regal presence.

"Thor," She said, ignoring the rest of them. "We must speak."

**Chapter 32**

Two things happened at once.

Amora sagged in her chains.

And the magic that had been keeping the rain off of Frigga fizzled out, leaving the queen of Asgard soaked within seconds.

Her back went even straighter and her mouth firmed in an unhappy line. It was remarkably little reaction to being abruptly doused in cold water but, then, that's queens for you, Tony thought.

"The repression field's up and running," Bruce said through the comms.

"Yeah," Tony replied. "We noticed."

Thor was staring at his mother with the sort of frantic misplaced guilt that Tony recognized from his own childhood. He stepped forward.

"Queen Frigga," He said. Was that her address? Whatever. She looked over at him. "I apologize for the presumption. We've built a magical suppression field and were using it to capture Amora. We weren't expecting you." Or we would have brought an umbrella, he didn't say.

Frigga took him in. She had her hands clasped in front of her, seeming completely at ease and in control once the initial shock of getting drenched had passed.

"The armor is indeed as wondrous as you say, Thor." She inclined her head to her son. She looked up at the black clouds and back over to Thor.

"Let us move this inside." She added.

Natasha detached herself from Steve's side and went to help Hansel. The kid looked banged up. Steady on his feet, at least, but he moved like he'd been thrown around a bit and Tony knew he'd be flinging sympathy aspirin at him as soon as they got back to the tower.

Steve walked up to Frigga and, with a polite "ma'am," held his shield over Frigga to block the rain.

She gave him a small smile. Of course Steve would be the one to get her to defrost a bit.

"And you are as honorable," She said approvingly.

Thor rose from his bow. The chain he had wrapped around Amora made her follow the movement and she looked glad to be upright again.

Amora didn't seem quite able to look at Frigga. Her eyes kept _almost_ making contact and then skating away.

She had a sullen, furtive look about her and inside his helmet Tony grinned gleefully. Oh, she had a spanking coming.

Barton took the lead, walking backwards and opening the rooftop door that would lead them inside and take them to a service elevator. There should be SHIELD vans waiting in the parking garage by now. One of the SHIELD monkies would fly the quinjet back to the helicarrier to create another level of obfuscation to the whole Hansel/Barton situation.

Yes, the vans would be there, he realized – if the suppression field was in place it meant that Bruce, Foster and Lewis were on the street with another van making sure everything was working.

Tony was kind of impressed with how quickly Jane had picked up the intricacies of the suppression field.

But, then again, the girl had a passion for studying wormholes. He shouldn't be surprised she had good instincts for other areas of abstract science.

The extraction went more smoothly than any of them had dared to hope and within a few minutes his team was safely hidden from view inside the vans.

Tony was on aerial support to make sure the ride back to the tower didn't include any surprises.

He fired his repulsors and took off.

Bruce looked up from the monitors when the side of the van slid open.

Natasha and… either Hansel or Clint, it was difficult to tell now that they were dressed the same, climbed in.

"We're keeping them separate to decrease the chance of them being seen together," Natasha explained.

"Where's Thor?" Jane asked.

"Riding over with his mother and Amora. Steve and Clint are bringing up the rear. We had the option to go with them but decided to ride with you."

Hansel then. Bruce looked with surprise at the misplaced man. Natasha said 'option,' but he could read between the lines enough to know Hansel had asked to ride with them.

Hansel looked bruised and tired, now that he had settled, but not in the least bit afraid of being near him.

He caught Bruce staring and shrugged.

"Shit goes down, I want to be near the troll," He smiled.

Hansel looked around in confusion as Natasha, Darcy and Bruce choked.

"Is that what we're calling Smashy McShashington?" Darcy grinned.

Bruce gave her a despairing look.

"Well we're not calling him _that_."

"I've heard Stark call you a troll before. So, you know, precedence." Natasha said, straight-faced.

He side-eyed her.

Hansel was frowning.

"You're not a troll?" He asked.

Bruce weighed his options.

Hansel would be leaving soon and there didn't seem to be any reason to create conflict. If he was comfortable with that midset, Bruce could accommodate him.

"Yes," He said, reassuringly. "I'm a troll."

Darcy and Natasha both snorted laughs at that.

Jane hadn't looked up from observing the monitors and Bruce kind of doubted she even realized they'd begun transit.

She was definitely his favorite.

The ride back to the tower was brief and soon enough they were riding up to the common floor.

Frigga was maintaining a regal silence and Steve met Thor's eyes, tipping a questioning look at the queen behind her back, trying to ask 'was she like this the whole trip?'

Thor gave him a tight, unhappy look and nodded.

Amora was keeping silent. She glowered at the floor, sulking like a petulant child.

Steve would be glad to be rid of her. Meeting Clint's eyes, he knew he wasn't the only one. The man hadn't actually put his bow away yet and didn't look like he planned to until Amora was off-world.

Steve was worried about Thor, though. The man didn't deserve to be punished for helping them.

The elevator doors opened onto Stark and Natasha having an argument.

"-not saying you couldn't do it, I'm just saying if you did, you should pay Russel T. Davies royalties."

"Oh, come on, it's not like they actually built a functional one. It would be entirely my own engineering."

"You'd still be stealing the idea from Doctor Who."

"I don't even know why I'm bothering – _I'm_ not the one in soaking clothes."

"What are you guys talking about?" Steve reluctantly asked. His new uniform didn't chafe as much as the old one when it got wet, but 'as much' didn't mean 'at all,' and the conversation sounded relevant to his interests.

Stark looked over, clearly noticing them for the first time.

"An air-drying elevator function." Stark said absently. He walked forward and bowed slightly to the queen.

"Lady Frigga, welcome to my tower." It was remarkable how charming and inoffensive the man could be when he wasn't acting like himself.

Frigga inclined her head.

"Anthony Stark, I thank you for your hospitality. Disable your… suppression field." She said, shaping the words uncertainly.

Stark looked at Amora significantly.

"She will not run." Frigga said with no room for doubt.

Amora sniffed and Frigga turned, locking such an icy, commanding gaze on her that Steve, just in proximity of the look, had to suppress a shiver.

"It would be exceedingly unwise," Frigga finished.

Amora looked back down at the floor, cowed.

Thor slowly uncoiled the loop of chain around her and Amora made no move beyond rubbing her arms.

"Jarvis?" Stark said.

"Of course, sir. It's done."

Frigga gave Stark a please smile and with no more movement than that, her hair and clothes dried.

Steve's too, he realized. He touched his hair curiously.

He'd need to comb it but it was definitely dry.

"Better," Frigga said. "Thor."

The blond looked at his mother warily.

There was some silent communication between the two of them and Thor nodded.

He walked to the balcony and stepped outside.

They watched him curiously as he held his hand up and just stood there.

A few moments later, Mjolnir's handle smacked into his hand.

Thor looked at his hammer and glanced back inside with what Steve recognized as guilt. He saw them watching and flinched, surreptitiously peeling a bloody feather off one of the stone sides.

"At least he didn't break a window this time," Stark said.

Thor came back inside and walked determinedly over to Amora.

She scowled and moved to take a step back. Frigga cleared her throat softly and Amora froze.

"You may wish to take a seat," Thor said, gesturing Amora over to one of Stark's couches.

She scowled but did as asked, settling herself primly.

Thor put the hammer in her lap. She noticeably sank deeper into the cushion but flicked her hair in a show of unconcern.

Steve could tell she was quietly seething.

"There is much that need be discussed but, first," Frigga said, smoothing hands down her dress and smiling in a reassuring, matronly way, "I would see action taken to restore these two. Hansel, Hawkeye," She crooked a hand, gesturing them forward.

"I've got to say," Tony commented, "Between you two and Thor the amount of exposed bicep in this room is ridiculous."

Steve closed his eyes and repressed the urge to sigh. Well, he'd known the good behavior couldn't last.

Frigga, fortunately, looked amused. In a stately way, of course.

"You know," The less-beaten-up version, Clint, said, grinning toothily, "I read a pretty compelling article about there being only two real courses of action to consider when faced with your clone."

"No," Natasha said firmly.

"Clone?" Hansel replied, raising an eyebrow, less in confusion because the context was pretty clear and more in guardedness of the playful look Clint was giving him.

Stark snorted something that Steve wanted to believe didn't sound like 'dopplebanger.'

Clint grinned, wide and happy in a way Steve really hadn't seen all that much. He'd worried that the man would come out of this experience bitter and closed off and was glad to be wrong.

Of course, he also wondered if that might have something to do with Coulson coming back from the dead.

He really did need to ask about that tattoo. It would be extraordinarily awkward if he jumped to what might be the wrong conclusion there.

Hansel eyed Clint, amusement clear on his face.

"I don't know," Hansel said, "I've already gotten kissed by one disreputable person today and you, sir, look like a scoundrel."

Gretel sighed, audibly and long-suffering. Steve knew how she felt.

"Amora," Frigga said. The pinned sorceress looked up. She folded her hands on top of the hammer and pretended she hadn't been futilely tugging at it.

"If you set them to rights willingly, it will not be forgotten when you stand before the hall."

Amora narrowed her eyes and looked between the two nearly identical men. (Clint had said there were differences; Steve honestly didn't see them. He had suspicions but he wasn't going to ask.)

Amora crossed her arms and pointedly looked away.

Frigga gave her a disapproving look.

"Very well," She said quietly, and there was a dark promise in her tone.

She faced Hansel and Clint and gave them a serene smile.

"This may hurt a bit," She warned.

They gave her matching reluctant looks.

She reached up and cupped the sides of their faces.

Frigga closed her eyes, brows wrinkling in concentration.

Steve held his breath.

Abruptly, Frigga snapped her arms together, slamming Clint and Hansel's skulls against each other with an audible 'crack.'

"Fucking!"

"Ow!"

They said.

Frigga stepped back and both men rubbed their heads at the point of contact.

"Oh my god, no!" Hansel- Clint?- barked indignantly. "No, that is not how this gets fixed! Are you fucking kidding me?"

"The space between you before was such that attempts at sending your consciousness out failed. Even had you been dislodged at the same moment, your minds would have returned to the nearest available vessel." Frigga waved a hand between them. "However, with you next to each other, untethering your consciousness simultaneously allowed your minds to follow their correct channels. Inelegant, perhaps, but effective."

Hansel – Clint, Steve was pretty sure, now – wobbled over to the couch on the other side of the room from Amora and sat down, leaning heavily against Natasha.

"Fuck me, I'm sore. What were you doing in here?" He shot the question at Hansel, who was busy hugging an enthusiastic Gretel.

Hansel drew back from Gretel and bounced on his toes, rolling his shoulders happily.

"I feel great." Hansel said, giving Clint a smug look that was answered with a raised middle finger.

"I thank you," Thor told Frigga solemnly.

"Yes," Clint hastily added, "Right, yes, thank you." Hansel smiled his agreement.

The elevator doors opened and Fury walked out.

"Jarvis?" Stark asked. "What the hell, buddy? Intruder alert."

"We've come to an agreement," Fury said, dark eye flicking around the room and taking in the scene.

"His terms were acceptable," Jarvis… purred, the word Steve was going to go with was 'purred.'

"Oh…kay. We're going to have words about this later, you know that, right?" Stark was looking at Fury but Steve thought he might be addressing his AI.

"Lady Frigga," Fury said, bowing smoothly. "I am Director Fury of SHIELD."

"My son has spoken of you," Frigga acknowledged.

"Thor has been a valuable ally." Fury said. "He's protected our people from, now, two dangerous Asgardians. If you're agreeable, I'd like to speak with you regarding the actions he's recently taken in defense of our realm."

Frigga regarded Fury consideringly and, after a moment, nodded.

"If you'll follow me, there's a conference room we can use," Fury said gesturing to one of the hallways leading out of the lounge.

Steve moved to follow them – so did the others. Fury stopped and gave them all an unimpressed look.

"This is a private conference."

"You expect us to just sit out here and wait?" Stark said.

Fury turned his back to them and kept walking.

"I expect you to head down to level 55. Coulson's awake and he's asking for you."

Chapter End Notes

This is the article Clint mentions: blog/human-clones-do-you-fk-or-fight/

Because, in my headcanon, Clint reads Cracked.

**Chapter 33**

Coulson looked up at the noise, blinking back to alertness. It was ridiculous after all the sleeping he'd apparently been doing but he was exhausted. The last few weeks were a muddled blur of blue-tinged nothing. He felt like he'd been in a fight. Or, he reflected sourly, like he'd been stabbed in the back.

He attempted to pull himself into a sitting position in the… noticeably-too-comfortable bed. He gave up after a moment of being glared at by his doctor. It was enough of a surprise to be waking up at all – he wasn't going to push it.

For all that he'd been swarmed by medical personnel (and Nick) when he came to, the room looked more like it belonged in an upscale apartment rather than a hospital.

He spotted his luggage – his personal luggage, the black and green striped suitcases he'd had in his closet – leaning against a wall and had a more than passing suspicion that Nick had moved him into Stark Tower.

"About time," Nick had said, shortly after Coulson had opened his eyes.

It had taken him a moment to get his throat to work.

"We win?" He'd managed in a rasp. Fury had maneuvered a very welcome cup of water to his mouth and he drank gladly.

"We won." The Director had said, smiling. Coulson thought he'd looked proud and had been annoyed that his aching head and body made pursuing the details just then too much effort.

"How am I not dead?" He asked instead.

"I told you. Not an option."

He'd had to breathe a laugh at that. It had been a weak sound but he almost believed the answer. If anyone could do it, he'd put his money on Nick.

He wanted to ask about Barton but he knew how unlikely it was that his lover was anything but dead. He'd felt thin, disoriented and drained. He hadn't felt strong enough to hear it and so he didn't ask.

"You'll be briefed in full later," Nick had said, withdrawing. "I need to go talk to Frigga."

"Frigga?" Why did he know that name.

"Thor's Mom. There's been a thing. Like I said - debrief later."

"Director - the team, are they-?"

"I'll send them down," Fury cut him off. He swept out of the room, ignoring the doctor telling him that Coulson wasn't up to more visitors yet.

Coulson was still being put through his cognitive paces when he heard Tony Stark's voice at his doorway.

The man didn't knock and Coulson couldn't say he was terribly surprised by that.

He was surprised by the unguardedly happy look Stark had given him. He'd schooled his face quickly but Coulson knew what he'd seen.

Huh.

He hadn't realized he'd meant… _anything_ to Stark, really. And the emotion he'd seen there hadn't been small.

Captain Rogers, likewise, and wasn't that a whole tangled ball of childhood hero-worship fantasies come to life. Coulson kept his face professional and composed.

He felt an uncoiling of tension when Natasha walked into the room. He met her eyes and knew she could read the relief there.

Seeing Clint come through door was like being punched in the gut.

He'd drawn a sharp breath that had his doctor scurrying over. Coulson had waved him away.

Clint was moving like he was bruised, had scratches down his neck and what very decidedly looked like a hickey sucked into the skin below his ear.

Clint must have followed his line of sight because he slapped a hand over the mark and gave him a wide-eyed shake of his head.

Coulson nearly laughed. His lover was alive and whole - did he really think Coulson gave two damns about anything else?

"Good to have you back, Agent," Stark said. "I haven't been threatened with a taser in weeks. It's been a remarkable lack in my life."

"I'm sure Pepper could have accommodated you." He replied easily. He took a hold of the cup of water and brought it to his mouth, taking a few more long drinks.

Stark snorted with undeniable fondness.

"We fought in your name, sir." Rogers told him solemnly. "I'm so sorry it took us so long to come together as a team."

"Captain," Coulson said, "I'm honored. And you don't have to apologize. They were extraordinary circumstances."

"You hear that," Stark told Natasha in a mock-whisper. "He said I'm extraordinary."

She rolled her eyes and looked at Coulson.

"Where's your taser?" She asked him.

Stark beamed.

Coulson's doctor inserted himself then.

"He's still recovering. And we still have tests to run. He should be up to visitors later," The man said - implying an order rather than stating it. It was a technique Coulson was very familiar with, having worked with notably intractable people.

"Right," Stark said, "Yes. Sure. You're in my tower by the way. Level fift- that cagy bastard." He interrupted himself.

Coulson raised an eyebrow.

"My medical-ish suite is further down. This is an apartment level." Stark grinned at him. "Welcome to Stark Tower." He concluded.

Coulson resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"I'm sure it's a temporary situation," He said.

"Uh-huh," Stark agreed, scratching his goatee in a very we'll-see-about-that way.

Rogers smiled at him and, catching the look the doctor was shooting him, left with a sincere; "Get some rest, sir."

The way that Stark stumbled after him Coulson more than slightly suspected Rogers had gotten a hold of his belt and tugged him along.

He didn't try to bite back his smile at that. When he'd last seen them… well.

He was pleased with the improvement, to say the least.

Natasha patted him on the foot before she left. It was a more blatant sign of affection than he was used to from her.

That left Clint and the doctor.

"Can we have a minute?" Coulson asked.

The doctor frowned, clearly unhappy with the request.

"Please." Clint added.

God, Coulson had missed his voice.

The man flicked an assessing glance between the two of them and, at length, conceded. Definitely a SHIELD medic, then.

"I'll be just outside." He said and closed the door behind him.

A silence fell after he'd left and Coulson frowned, noting that Clint wouldn't quite meet his eyes. He set the cup down on the bedside table.

"Clint?"

"You were dead." The archer answered immediately.

Coulson's stomach flipped.

"What?"

"Fury…" Clint scrubbed a hand over his face. "He told the team you were dead. You were dead, Phil, for a month and a half."

"Clint…" He couldn't find the words.

Clint closed the space between them and kissed him desperately. Shaking hands cupped his face and Coulson kissed back just as hard.

Well. The intent was there but the delivery was off.

He was still exhausted and recovering, but Coulson felt sure Clint got the point.

Some of that weakness must have bleed into the kiss - of course it did, because Clint pulled back. He turned his head into Coulson's neck, squirming his way onto the over-large bed and settling beside him. Careful, so careful not to jar him. Clint settled against his side, the long, firm line of his body pressed against him. Coulson closed his eyes, overwhelmed with gratitude that they'd both made it; that this moment was something they could have.

"I don't want to be the one to break this to you," Clint mumbled against his throat. Coulson turned his face into Clint's hair and breathed him in, "But while you were taking your nap, something clearly died in your mouth."

Coulson barked a laugh that tugged… interestingly, through his torso. He brought his hand up and pulled Clint down for another kiss.

"Friend," Thor stopped Bruce when it looked like he would leave with the others. His eyes swept over those still in the room - Amora, Gretel, Hansel.

Ladies Jane and Darcy had not yet joined them and Thor wondered where they were. He'd deal with that in a moment.

Bruce raised his eyebrows in question.

"A moment. I must see to something and would not leave such a foe unguarded." He inclined his head to Amora who was once again attempting to dislodge Mjolnir.

Thor didn't for a moment think that she'd succeed but better to have a back up plan in place.

Bruce looked at Amora and then glanced at the chain on Thor's wrist, correctly guessing his purpose.

Bruce nodded.

"Sure. I didn't really know Coulson." He said mildly.

"He is a brave and noble man. You will be glad to know him better, I am sure of it."

Bruce gave him an easy, agreeing smile.

Thor tipped his head in thanks and pulled himself into Loki's prison.

If the son of Coul was awake, it meant that Loki had fulfilled his end of the promise. Thor very much doubted his brother was capable of such in his sleep.

Thor looked around and, not seeing Loki, returned the two chairs that still stood in the center of the room back to the table they'd come from.

"Loki?"

It was a small prison. The only other places he could be were the bed chamber and washroom.

Both doors stood ajar and Thor spotted his brother's form sprawled on the bed.

Loki didn't appear to have moved in the slightest from how Thor had placed him. His arm was still tucked under his cheek, one leg still dangling slightly off the side.

He didn't move at all as Thor entered and Thor knew Loki, even the pale, weary shade he had become since his imprisonment, would have reacted to his presence.

But Loki slumbered. He slept as a stone and Thor had to move close to even see his brother's chest moving in breath.

Thor frowned.

"Sleep well, brother," He murmured, and dared to brush the lank black strands of Loki's hair away from his mouth.

Loki didn't try to pull a knife and go for him. He really was asleep.

His questions would have to wait until Loki woke.

He returned to Stark's Tower.

"There you are!" Jane said and seized him in a hug.

He returned it gladly. Oh, his precious Jane.

He took her by the shoulders and held her back, drinking her in with his eyes.

She tugged at the hem of her shirt self-consciously.

"I, um, freshened up a bit. I'm not going to meet your mom for the first time looking like I'd just gotten off a transcontinental flight."

She had, he noticed, painted her lips a soft pink and edged her eyes in kohl. Her hair gleamed from brushing.

"You are beautiful, my lady," He told her. He didn't add that he would love her in equal measure had she greeted him coated in thekyn slime. He had enough experience to know that most women might appreciate the sentiment but not the words.

He kissed her, and her mouth tasted sweetly of mint and strawberries.

He ached, because he knew too soon he would have to part from her. He had no illusions about the punishment he faced. Allowing people to enter Loki's prison was no small crime. He had sworn himself to the duty of guarding the gate and he had broken that oath.

"I would have liked to take you to Asgard," He said when they at last drew back for breath. "I would have shown you the golden orchards and the crystal lakes that rim the city. We would have dined together and heard the tales of the hall together."

He slid his hands into her silky hair, cupping her head gently.

"I would have liked that," Jane said softly, and her eyes were so sad. "I've missed you."

He kissed her again.

Amora started making a gagging sound.

Thor drew back and glared at her.

"I'm sorry," Amora said insincerely. "The cloying atmosphere," She tapped fingers against her chest as though clearing a blockage. "I'm sure you understand."

Jane narrowed her eyes at the enchantress.

And then, surprisingly, she laughed.

"You and Darcy, I swear." Jane huffed another small sound of amusement and turned her back, dismissing Amora.

Thor had to bite his cheek to hold back his grin at the snub. The look on Amora's face made keeping his mirth a secret quite a challenge.

He hid his smile in another kiss.

There was a delicate cough behind him and Thor froze, caught.

He withdrew and licked his lips sheepishly, tasting strawberries.

"Mother," He said, turning to face her. "May I present the Lady Jane Foster."

Jane's face was scarlet and Amora started cackling in delight.

Jane curtsied, somewhat awkwardly.

"Hi," She said. "Hello."

Director Fury stepped forward and offered his hand.

"Doctor Foster, I'm Director Fury. I don't believe we've had the pleasure."

"Director Fury!" She squeaked. "Oh! Thank you! For, ah, for," She darted her eyes from Thor to his mother and back to Fury. "All that you've done," She settled on.

The clever little through-floor contraption opened and disgorged most of his team. He noticed the absence of the hawk and was glad of it. He should spend time reuniting with his beloved.

"Where does the tesseract lay now, Thor?" Frigga asked, and Thor flushed with shame anew. He'd been so aware of his failure in keeping Loki's prison that he'd overlooked his charge to hold the tesseract.

"Safe," The Man of Iron said, inserting himself smoothly. "It has protections on it that would rival Asgard's treasure room."

He was repeating what Thor had told him earlier, inspecting the space to see if it would bear the risk.

Frigga raised an eyebrow.

"It is so," Thor said agreed.

"Retrieve it. It's time to take these mortals home," She said, inclining her head to indicate Gretel and Hansel.

He looked at Amora.

"The lock is keyed to Mjolnir so that none save me can open it."

Frigga… looked impressed. Thor felt a frisson of hope that perhaps his caution would win him some leniency.

Amora glared at him as he picked his hammer up. She smoothed her wrinkled clothes and crossed her legs primly.

Frigga gave her a level stare and Amora sniffed and looked away, settling back into the couch.

Thor wanted to ask what decision had been made regarding his crimes.

He held his tongue and went to retrieve the tesseract.

Tony followed Thor.

Less because he wanted to reassure the big lug and more because he needed to retrieve something and time was abruptly of the essence.

They stood in the elevator in pensive silence.

"What are you thinking?" Tony asked.

Thor bowed his head and turned those blue eyes of his down to regard the tasteful paneling.

"I know I go to face punishment and this is only right and just. But… I would have liked to have spent more time with my Lady Jane. It seems cruel, for me, that the one most loved treasure of Midgard is one that I have so fleetingly enjoyed while attending her defense."

"That sounded both poetic and naughty." Tony said, admiringly.

Thor gave him a mildly chastising look.

"I know Foster's working hard on the Einstein-Rosen bridge. Maybe she'll get it up and running and can come visit you." He offered. Making Thor sad made him feel like he'd kicked a puppy.

Thor gave him a weak smile.

"I appreciate your efforts, friend."

The elevator opened. Tony wished he had more he could say but he was tapped, and didn't think the god would appreciate a 'well, this sucks,' despite its sincerity and accuracy.

Thor went off to open the safe and Tony went in his own direction.

He'd had Dum-E, Jarvis and U working on something since before they'd left to confront Amora and it should be ready by now.

"Jarvis, talk to me, is it ready?"

"It is, sir."

He walked into his lab and saw the neat, black case laying open on his work table.

"Nice," He said. He zipped it closed with a grin.

Hansel watched Thor and Tony leave the room. He was torn between excitement at returning home and an exquisite sense of loss that he'd be saying goodbye to the technological wonderland.

He met Natasha's eyes and stood from the couch, walking over. Gretel moved to stand, too, but he waved her off. This was private.

"Hey," He said. "Can we speak?"

Natasha detached herself from the wall and walked out of the room. Hansel followed her, feeling the heavy stare Fury leveled at him between his shoulder blades the entire way.

She led them into a room and closed the door behind him.

"What's on your mind?" She offered.

"Something Amora said. It's been bothering me and I think you should hear it."

Natasha raised her eyebrows.

"When Thor was negotiating to get me back. She was talking about Loki and she said Thor's love for him made him weak."

Natasha looked at him for a long moment.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Hansel ran a hand through his hair. Taking Natasha aside had been an impulse he'd followed but articulating himself wasn't always something he was great at.

"It's just," He dropped his hand, "Amora is a psychotic bitch. I mean, full on bitch and also psychotic."

"I won't disagree," She prompted when he paused.

"And you're not, Natasha. I don't think you are. And it," He searched for the words. "I don't think you really believe the 'love is for fools' thing as much as you're trying to convince yourself you do. So quit it. You're in love with Clint. Quit punishing yourself for it. I really don't think he'd mind."

Something flared in Natasha's eyes.

He flinched when she moved forward. It was an instinct and one she rolled her eyes at.

"Follow me."

She walked them to the service elevator, circumventing the other room.

Natasha jabbed the floor button and Jarvis quietly said, "I do not believe the Agents would appreciate an interruption at present."

"I need to see them," She said.

There was a weighty silence, and then the elevator moved.

There was a man in a white uniform leaning beside the door that Natasha navigated them towards.

The man looked at them disapprovingly.

"He really shouldn't have more visitors for a while."

"We'll only be a moment," Natasha replied, opening the door without even pausing.

Hansel had seen a lot of eyebrow-raising things in the last few days.

Himself, locking lips with another man, he had to say made the top ten.

They drew apart quickly and Clint gave them a thoroughly pissed off look.

"Ah," The other man said. "This… is not how I'd intended to break this news to..." The man trailed off and stared at him.

He blinked hard.

"Sorry," Hansel said, finding his tongue again. "Sorry, we didn't mean to intrude, we're just - wow, really sorry about that."

He hauled Natasha out by her elbow and closed the door.

**Chapter 34**

Clint met Coulson's wide eyes and repressed a sigh.

"So, there have been things that have happened." Clint said.

"I see. Is he a clone, mutant, twin, magic, or parallel you?"

Clint blinked at his lover.

He bent down to kiss Coulson again but Coulson put a finger over his lips, stopping him.

"That can wait. Go talk to Natasha."

Clint looked at the closed door.

"Any advice?"

"Tell the truth." Coulson said.

Clint nodded and carefully extricated himself from the bed.

The doctor helpfully pointed his thumb in the direction the other two had gone as Clint passed him.

"-told me his lover was dead. And also female."

"I never confirmed either of those things." Natasha was saying when Clint caught up to them.

Hansel looked at him with a mildly freaked-out expression but Natasha's face was a blank, unreadable mask.

He decided to tackle the easier problem first.

"So, ah," He scratched his chin. He was starting to get a bit of stubble and was overdue for a shave.

Coulson wasn't, though, and part of him wondered who had taken care of that. A nurse, maybe?

Hansel was looking at him expectantly.

"Was that P.C.?" His double asked.

"Not according to republicans," He answered without thinking.

Natasha squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then went back to being a stone wall.

He looked at Hansel. Did his face really look like that when he was confused? Yeesh.

"Phil," Clint said, brain kicking into the right gear, "Yes, Phil Coulson. We, ah…"

Clint trailed off, looking for the right words.

"I'm glad you have him back," Hansel said. His eyes still looked a little wide but Clint could read body language.

The kid was being sincere.

"You're not weirded out?" Clint asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh thoroughly," Hansel agreed without hesitation.

Clint paused but Hansel didn't seem to feel any need to elaborate.

A beat, and then Hansel shook himself.

"You know, this is… clearly, _clearly_ more between the two of you. I'm just going to… I'm going." He said and without waiting for confirmation turned and headed back towards the elevator.

Clint looked at Natasha.

Natasha looked at Clint.

"That was… either really funny or unnecessarily mean, Nat." He said at last. "I kinda need to know where you're coming from before I decide, though."

She looked away.

"I wanted to see. I wanted him to see."

Clint turned himself and leaned back against the wall, sideways to Natasha.

"Why?" He asked.

The mask cracked and Clint wasn't sure what he saw beneath it. It was raw and pained and Clint let go of the last of his anger at her.

She stepped into his space and Clint held still.

He held still while she brought a hand up to his cheek and when she closed her mouth over his.

It was a brief kiss, and their mouths stayed closed.

Clint's heart thudded in his throat and he didn't dare move.

Natasha had been so adamant that this wasn't what they were that he'd shut down the part of himself that thought of her that way years ago. He'd had to, or he knew he would have hurt her with his inability to respect her limits.

He didn't want to hurt her.

"Natasha," He said when she pulled back, her lips leaving his with a soft sound. She didn't meet his eyes but didn't turn away. She did take a step back, returning space between them.

Clint swallowed.

"Hansel believes in…" She shook her head. "Fairy tale," She muttered, and Clint wasn't sure if she was talking about Hansel or Hansel's beliefs. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"Natasha," He said again but she was already walking away.

Clint didn't know what to do.

He ran after her.

"I won't come between you and Coulson." She said when he caught up, not even turning around. She jabbed the elevator button harder than necessary. "Clint, I won't. Love him. I'm… glad. I'm happy that you have him. He's a good man."

Clint didn't know if he should agree. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Natasha so off balance. It left him adrift.

"Natasha," He said. He didn't seem capable of saying anything else.

"Later. This… later, this should be done later. We're working." She spun away and fairly ran to the stairwell door.

Clint watched her go and cringed when the door banged shut behind her.

Well.

Fuck.

Gretel eyed her brother suspiciously as he disappeared with Natasha. He had that look about him that made her think that, if they weren't leaving soon, she would have had to have the hurt-my-brother-and-I'll-gut-you talk with the redhead.

Just as well they were leaving. Natasha was somewhat more intimidating than Mina had been.

Steve settled into the seat Hansel had vacated.

She smiled at him.

His blond hair had dried into an adorable fluffy disarray and she was torn between wanting to fingercomb it back to order and tousle it even further.

Both options meant putting her hands in his hair, though, so Gretel didn't overthink it.

His hair was soft.

Steve blushed a little as she stroked her fingers through it.

On the other side of the room, Frigga and Jane were talking quietly. Frigga was listening to the girl with a kind, patient tilt to her head. Gretel wondered what it would be like to court someone who had such a powerful, daunting parent.

She felt a tingle of awareness and looked up to meet Fury's eye. The man looked pointedly at Gretel's hand in Steve's hair and gave her a look full of clear warning.

Ah, she thought.

That's what it's like.

"I'm sorry you're leaving so soon. I think I would have liked to get to know you better," Steve said. He had his head leaning slightly into her touch and still had that faint blush lingering in the tips of his ears.

Fury went back to pretending to ignore them, continuing his soft conversation with Bruce, the two of them staring with unconcealed attention at Amora.

"Me too." She agreed.

This place was weird and alien but she was good at taking things in stride if the payoff looked worth it.

And she had to admit – Steve looked worth it.

She managed to tease his hair up into two little horn tufts and let her hand fall back to her lap.

He looked a little disappointed and Gretel immediately itched to return her fingers.

She didn't, though. Those horns were perfect.

"You're going to go back to hunting witches?" He asked.

"We are. It's what we do." She agreed. "You going to go back to saving damsels in distress?"

"I don't think your brother would appreciate that description."

"He'll get to object when it stops applying."

Steve laughed softly.

Gretel's eyes dropped to the shiny white star in the middle of Steve's chest. Her first impression of the outfit had been incredulity and disdain. She couldn't imagine him out in a forest.

But this world glittered and gleamed beyond the windows and what little she'd seen of it had been just as bright and shiny. She thought he was less an idiot who didn't understand the value of camouflage and more that this place just dictated a different avenue of concealment.

Steve was like a butterfly hiding in a flower.

She decided not to share that observation with him.

"Someone needs to." Steve said, answering her question. "There are always going to be people out there that need protection. And as long as I'm able, I'm going to step up to that plate."

Gretel understood the point if not the words.

"Sure I can't convince you to come with us? I spend all day with witches, a troll and my brother. I could use some pretty in my life."

He grinned, lopsided and bashful. He had an adorable awkwardness that reminded her of Ben and a body that absolutely didn't.

She felt a little glow of pleasure just at having his attention. He really was stupidly beautiful and Gretel didn't feel shallow appreciating him. She liked a lot about him - not just the physical.

Her interest in his talents and morals didn't stop her from imagining him naked, though.

She smiled back, and did fairly mourn that she wouldn't get to see more of him.

Hansel came back into the room and Gretel immediately focused on him. He had a panicked look about him.

"Hansel?" She asked.

"Nothing." He said quickly.

She raised her eyebrows high.

"Nothing." He insisted.

He sat down on the other side of her and leaned back into the cushions heavily.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked.

"Nothing," Hansel repeated.

She shared a look with Steve.

"Jarvis, any insight you can shed on this? What did Natasha do to him?" Steve asked the ceiling.

Gretel nearly jumped out of her skin when that disembodied voice answered. She was having a hard time getting used to that.

"They paid a visit to Agent Coulson, Captain."

Gretel started putting pieces together. She looked at the ceiling, since apparently that was the thing to do.

"Was Clint still with him?"

"Indeed he was, ma'am." The voice said.

Steve gave her an inquisitive look.

She ignored him and grinned wolfishly at her brother.

He glowered at her and sank deeper into the cushions.

"Not a word." He warned.

Gretel fluttered her eyelashes at him.

"You know, as much as you insisted that that thing with Mikel's brother was a misunderstanding –"

"It was! He looked like a girl!" Hansel said hotly.

Frigga, Jane, Fury, Amora and Bruce all turned to stare at him.

He mouthed 'sorry,' and held his hands up in an embarrassed dismissal.

Gretel snorted.

Steve was looking at Hansel with open curiosity.

"Were Clint and Coulson…?" He asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," Hansel said, hiding his face in his hands.

"That's a great big yes," Gretel grinned. "I bet you looked adorable together. Oh, I mean 'they.' Although you did borrow that body for a while. And hey, I bet right now that body is-"

"I hate you so much right now," Hansel moaned, cutting her off.

Thor returned and the atmosphere abruptly sobered.

The elevator paused halfway back up and Clint joined him.

Tony took in Clint's frozen expression and raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure if the nice-guy move would be leaving this alone or lending his ear.

He toed the case a little more to the side and took a breath, deciding to go for it.

"Don't." Clint said, although not unkindly.

Tony spread his hands in surrender.

Thor was already in the common room when the got there and Tony briefly thanked his luck that he hadn't left yet.

"See them back to their realm. We will discuss what is to be done when you return."

"Wait!" Tony yelped, running into the room. He thrust the case at Hansel and realized only after the fact that nobody had actually been moving to leave yet.

He adjusted his tie and pretended that all but throwing the thing at the boy had been exactly what he'd intended.

"A going away present. You know," Tony said, "Because it nearly literally pains me that a mind like yours is going someplace without the internet."

Hansel took the case and gave Tony a wry, grateful look.

"I am going to miss your armor. It's amazing."

"Yeah," Tony drew the word out, sighing it in agreement.

Tony caught sight of Steve's hair and choked on his own spit.

He hid the laughter in a coughing fit.

Gretel gave him a wicked smile and he nearly lost it again. He schooled his face with effort.

Steve gave him a sideways, distrustful look and Tony had to look away or he'd ruin this.

"There are some instructions," Tony told Hansel, "But I'm pretty sure you'll be able to figure it out."

"Are you giving advanced tech to a developing civilization?" Bruce asked dryly, "Because there's no way that could go wrong."

"No," Tony protested. "I'm giving advanced tech to Hansel. Totally different."

Bruce gave him his we've-both-read-enough-science-fiction-to-know-bet ter look, that Tony entirely ignored.

He really did want to keep Hansel.

And Gretel too, given how clearly good she was for Steve.

"You're sure you have to go back to witch hunting?" He whined.

Hansel smiled, holding the case like it was precious.

His determination didn't falter when he met Tony's eyes, even though Tony could see the answering want there.

"I'm sure," He said. "Thank you, Tony."

Thor stepped forward with the tesseract.

Steve grabbed his sketchbook and carefully tore out a page, folding it and handing it to Gretel.

"I'd like you to have this," He said, offering it.

She smiled. She took the page, pulled him down by his uniform front and planted one on him.

Tony wolf-whistled by instinct.

"You know, she's right; it really would be an unforgivable missed opportunity." Clint said.

"What?" Hansel had time to say before Clint grabbed the case out of his hands and bent Hansel backwards, kissing him with obscene thoroughness.

Hansel flailed but his position didn't give him any leverage.

Gretel broke her kiss with Steve because she was laughing too hard to keep at it.

Even Frigga looked amused.

Hansel managed to flop his way out of Clint's hold, falling to the floor with a grunt.

"Gah!" He said, wiping his mouth.

"Too much tongue?" Clint asked, tilting his head in an innocent inquiry that his glittering eyes made a lie of.

Tony kind of wanted to applaud.

Clint's humor faded quietly and Tony followed his line of sight to Natasha, who'd appeared against the wall like she'd always been there.

Ah.

Tony might be oblivious to a lot of things but it was easy enough to see what was going on between the two – or, well, three –of them.

Clint offered Hansel a hand up and the other man, after a moment of distrustful staring, took it.

Clint handed him the case back with a smile and a clap on the shoulder.

"I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but you have an excellent mouth."

Hansel looked quietly horrified. He looked at his sister.

"You're never going to let me forget this, are you?"

"Never," She gleefully assured him.

Clint released Hansel, radiating satisfaction. Fury shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Thor," Frigga prompted quietly.

He nodded and offered the siblings the tesseract's handle.

"Thank you for the hospitality," Gretel said, grinning at Steve as she took the handle. The way she said 'hospitality' made Tony think that wasn't what she meant.

Hansel gave Tony a sincere smile and Tony tried not to grin at how obviously freshly kissed his mouth looked. He nodded at the kid.

Thor twisted the handle and, just like that, they were gone.

Tony sagged, just a bit, in disappointment. He'd known it was going to happen but he'd still hoped they'd change their minds at the last minute and declare his tower too awesome to part with for the dubious pleasure of witch hunting.

"Stark," Fury said, interrupting his train of thought.

He met the man's eye and raised his eyebrow.

"We need Loki's staff."

Amora noticeably perked up at that, curiosity and avariciousness flittering across her face.

Tony raised his other eyebrow to join the first.

"Why?" He asked.

Fury gave him a level stare and after a moment Tony rolled his eyes, wandering off to retrieve it.

Jane tried to stop staring at Tony Stark's ass as it walked away.

She really, really did.

It wasn't even that it was a great ass, although it was; she had Thor and Thor redefined the genre.

It's just that it was _Tony Stark_.

The jet lag wasn't helping. Darcy had waved her white flag when they'd gotten back to the tower and Jarvis had directed her to a spare bedroom. In her assistant's dubious defense, Darcy had been up for twenty straight hours before SHIELD had even first contacted them.

Darcy was going to be sad that she'd missed the twins kissing, though. Jane could imagine her robbed, indignant huff quite clearly. It had admittedly been pretty hot.

A hand closed on her shoulder and she jumped, startled.

Frigga chuckled warmly.

Jane was torn between truly, instinctively liking Frigga and wanting to set her on fire and run.

She exuded a competent goodness that Thor had clearly inherited from her, but she was also going to be taking Thor away with the intent to punish him for helping them.

Frigga stroked a hand through her hair.

"Do not worry so, child."

Jane caught Frigga's wrist, feeling very bold for doing so.

"What's going to happen to him?"

Frigga smiled enigmatically and, when it became clear she didn't intend to answer, Jane kind of wanted to punch her in the face. She made sure not to show it.

"You love him, don't you?" Frigga asked.

Jane couldn't look away from Frigga's eyes. She was starting to feel a little disconnected; weirdly light and unconcerned.

"We haven't known each other very long, not really." Jane said. She felt like she was mumbling, or on the verge of sleep.

"That's not what I asked." Frigga countered gently, smoothing her fingers through Jane's hair again.

"Yes." Jane heard herself say. "I love him."

"Good." Frigga withdrew her hand and the world snapped back into focus so quickly that Jane stumbled.

She looked at Frigga, wide-eyed and no longer on the fence on that like/set on fire issue.

She took a few steps back and Frigga nodded her head as though agreeing.

Jane crossed the room and stood next to Banner.

The other scientist joined her in shooting Frigga wary looks.

She liked Bruce.

Tony Stark returned and he was carrying a golden spear in a gloved hand.

No –not gloved, that was the Iron Man gauntlet.

Jane quietly, demurely fangirled. Purely internally of course.

Steve (And Jane thought it was silly that SHIELD was pretending this new Captain America was also named Steve but who was she to argue) tensed noticeably upon seeing the staff, and the serious expression on his face did not work with what Gretel had done to his hair in the slightest.

A pillar of blue light on the balcony drew their attention and Thor reappeared. He oriented himself and walked back inside.

Jane's heart hurt. She'd only just gotten Thor back and wasn't ready to say goodbye again already.

Thor gave her a weak smile, trying to reassure her even though they both knew how this was going to end.

"Thor," Frigga said, clasping her hands in front of herself. "Your Fury speaks well in your defense, but I would hear what you have to say. Why did you break your oaths?"

Thor met his mother's eyes unflinchingly.

"My brother suffered. I saw a way to both ease his pains and help the mortals I hold as shield brothers. I knew I broke our laws and am ready to face punishment."

Frigga's face was an unreadable mask.

She walked over to Tony Stark and held out an expectant hand.

Tony Stark looked at Fury and, at his nod, handed the staff over.

Frigga looked at the staff with sadness and distaste. She looked back at Thor and her face hardened.

"Thor," She said, and this was the voice of a commanding queen.

Jane's eyes prickled.

"You are banished. You are to stay on Midgard until such time as I judge you worthy to return."

Thor blinked. He bent his head closer, as though unsure he had heard her correctly.

Jane's pounding heart skipped a beat.

Frigga's face changed smoothly into something kind and maternal.

Frigga closed the distance to Thor and took his chin gently in her hand. Thor's eyes were so blue, so hopeful.

"Did you forget that he is loved by me as well?" Frigga said softly. "He is my son."

Thor's free hand came up and pressed Frigga's fingers more firmly to his cheek.

"Thank you," Thor said, quiet and intense.

Frigga looked over at Jane, knowingly, and then withdrew from Thor. She took the tesseract in her other hand and Thor released it to her easily.

"Amora," She said, and her voice wasn't that of a mother anymore.

Frigga held the cage out towards the enchantress.

With an obvious reluctance, Amora stood and took hold of the handle.

Frigga and Fury exchanged a glance and Fury nodded.

Jane knew she couldn't be the only one wondering what that was about.

Frigga smiled at them, lingering on Thor.

Jane thought she might say something more but with a twist of the handle, she and Amora disappeared in a burst of light.

Thor scooped her up in a hug and she started laughing as soon as his arms closed around her.

He kissed her hard, his beard tickling her cheeks and nose and Jane felt breathless with relief.

And also from kissing.

She tugged him back with a hand in his hair and grinned, gasping, before going back in for another.

"So, the staff?" Bruce asked. Jane wasn't sure whom – she was a little busy.

"A trade," Fury answered.

"Awww, you soft-hearted, push-over romantic you." Tony Stark accused.

"The WSC isn't going to be happy about that," Clint pointed out.

Jane looked at Fury. He was looking back at her and, with a blink (wink?) smiled, very cat-with-cream.

"They have other concerns," Fury said, answering Clint.

Jane would have added something to the conversation – a thank you, at the very least – but Thor was kissing her again and the rest didn't seem to matter too much.

Loki let go of his projection when Frigga activated the tesseract. It wouldn't travel between worlds and it would hardly do to leave it standing there.

He leaned against the wall, invisible, and tingled with smug pleasure.

By the sweet, sweet nine it felt good to have magic coursing through his veins again.

Well.

They weren't really _his_ veins, but Loki was well versed in making do.

He imagined how the enchantress would react when she woke up and found herself chained and powerless and Loki could barely suppress the laugh.

It had been almost too easy to slip himself inside and push her mind out once she had opened the way.

Ohhhh, she would be furious. She would not soon forgive him for this.

He wondered how long it would take her to convince Thor who she really was.

He slid his hands over Amora's breasts and over her stomach. It was a nice body. Garishly dressed, but he would soon fix that. Now that he didn't have to pretend to be her anymore he planned to make some changes.

He watched his brother kiss the lady Jane.

Loki twisted reality around himself and vanished from Midgard.

He had the oddest craving for Niflheim's fruits and could summon no reason at all not to indulge.

**Epilogue**

Chapter Notes

The full title of this story was originally "A Jeremy Renner By Any Other Name is Still an Adorably Muppet-faced Hottie with Pornographic Arms and a Habit of BAMFery."

I went with the short version. Figured it was more tasteful.

Pepper stared at the refrigerator door.

Beside the doodle of Steve dressed as a showgirl, there was a picture – an actual picture, printed on a glossy 8x10 with what Pepper recognized as a surveillance camera timestamp in the top left corner – of Clint Barton bending what Pepper would swear looked like Clint Barton backwards in mimicry of that classic Times Square kiss.

In the picture, the 'nurse' had an arm struck out awkwardly in what the slight motion blur suggested was mid-flail.

She tilted her head but the picture didn't make any more sense that way either.

"What on earth?" She muttered.

She shook her head and opened the door. She'd come to this level in the first place because Tony was proving elusive and she'd been hoping to find him here, but also because the fridge in their own level was overdue for a restock.

She grabbed a box of leftover Thai food and made a mental note to ask Clint about the picture the next time she saw him.

She turned around and nearly dropped the box, fingers suddenly numb with shock.

Phil Coulson took in her expression and frowned ruefully.

"I take it Stark didn't tell you?"

Pepper set the box on the counter very deliberately.

"I," She said, "Am going to kill that man."

She hugged Phil tightly, relaxing the grip a little when he grunted in what might have been pain.

"Easy on the merchandise," Clint said, _immediately_ next to her ear. She jumped, releasing the agent guiltily.

"Merchandise?" Phil said, quirking an eyebrow.

Clint shrugged.

"How long have you been alive?" Pepper demanded, still reeling.

Phil pursed his lips. "Give or take 51 years."

She punched him in the shoulder and then grabbed him in another hug.

Pepper felt her eyes prickling and tried hard to shut that down.

Phil stroked her back soothingly.

"You asshole," She said into his shoulder.

"In his defense, he was in a coma." Clint pointed out. The archer paused in front of the fridge and Pepper saw him regarding the picture out of the corner of her eye.

Clint grinned at it before opening the door and pulling out a box of juice.

"What's the deal with that, by the way?" Pepper asked, sneaking a hand around Coulson's back to thumb moisture away from her eyes. She wasn't quite ready to let go of Phil yet and the man wasn't objecting.

"There was a psychotic witch that grabbed my look-alike from a different world and threw him into the mix for a while. I was morally obligated to mess with him while he was here."

"His name was Hansel," Phil said dryly, "As in Hansel and Gretel. Yes, that Hansel and Gretel."

Pepper drew back and looked from Phil's serious expression to Clint, who was jabbing a straw through the indent on the juice box and avoiding Pepper's eyes.

"I go to Japan for two days – _two_ – to check on a facility and this is what I miss? What else?"

"Thor's back. He's also been banished from Asgard again, so he'll be staying with us for the foreseeable future."

Pepper raised her eyebrows.

"Where is he now?"

Clint started making a… vaguely obscene sucking noise with the straw.

Phil gave him an unimpressed look, although Pepper read amusement in his flat expression.

"With Doctor Foster, I believe."

Pepper waited for elaboration. Clint's sucking noises didn't abate.

"His girlfriend." Phil said.

Clint finished the box with an exaggerated sigh of pleasure.

Phil rolled his eyes.

Pepper made a little 'ah' sound.

She brushed her bangs back and Phil's gaze locked on her engagement ring.

"I see you're not the only one working with outdated intel. Stark?" He asked.

She nodded, grinning.

"My condolences," Phil told her, straight-faced and somber.

She had to laugh at that and swat him.

"I need to go find him and murder him for not telling me about you." She said. Clint had opened her abandoned box of Thai food and was surreptitiously stealing bits of chicken.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Phil told her. "Plausible deniability. You understand."

She hugged him again, carefully. He did look a bit worn-down, now that she was past the shock of seeing him at all.

"I'm glad you're not dead."

He snorted a soft laugh.

"Me too."

Tony sprawled back in his workshop chair, stretching his spine and shoulders until the muscles around the hole in his chest started protesting.

He unlocked the arc reactor casing and carefully withdrew his glowing heart – _very_ carefully not pulling out its connections. He gave it a critical once-over and flushed the casing with fluids. It was messy and the stink of the plasma discharge guaranteed the need for a long shower afterwards, but the reactor was a part of his body and he wasn't about to let its maintenance slip.

Satisfied that everything was still working perfectly, he carefully slid it back into place, locking it with a 'click' he felt through what was left of his sternum.

"Okay, now spill," He said, getting up to wash his hands and the skin around the casing with mechanic's soap.

He was running a cloth of the citrus-smelling lather over his chest when he realized Jarvis hadn't answered him.

"Jarvis?"

"I apologize, sir; I didn't realize I was being addressed."

"Oh don't even try it. You. Fury. Talk." He rinsed the cloth out and started wiping the soap off. "What did he offer? The last I was aware of, you were planning to - very creatively, might I add - reroute things in the man's private bathroom. Now you're all buddy-buddy?"

"Hardly, sir. He merely negotiated agreeably."

Tony drummed his fingers on the sink and looked at one of his cameras with a 'get on with it' expression.

"In exchange for a cessation of hostilities," Jarvis paused and Tony inhaled to threaten, "Information on the WSC." Jarvis finished.

Tony stilled his fingers.

"Come again?"

"I lack the necessary organs, sir."

If Jarvis hadn't just dropped a bombshell, Tony would have snorted approvingly.

"What kind of information?"

"I'm still decrypting it, sir," Jarvis said, "But my initial analysis is 'a lot' and 'useful.'"

Jarvis sounded pleased.

Tony's mind raced.

This was a power play.

It had to be. No other way Fury would give him information like that, implication that it was to pacify Jarvis aside.

He sped through the possibilities. A power play against the World Security Council. To unseat them? To replace them? Tony wasn't sure which one the man was going for but figured either one ended with fewer chances of a nuclear missile being unleashed on a civilian population again.

And, Tony realized - with that last little bit of negotiation with Frigga, Fury had guaranteed not only Thor's availability but also his loyalty. Having a Norse god in your court couldn't be discounted.

"That velvety smooth son of a bitch," Tony said, wonderingly.

As a general rule, Nick didn't like apologizing.

If he was in a position where it was necessary, it meant something he had control over had gone wrong. And if that happened, it meant that his information was likely to blame.

He looked across his desk at Clint Barton and owned that his information had definitely been off.

"I'm sorry," He said.

It was gratifying that the unfamiliar words made his battle-hardened sniper blink in surprise.

"Sir?" Barton asked. He had his report on the Amora incident in his hand – nominally the reason Fury had brought him in. And Fury would be reviewing it in depth later; Barton had unique intel on two populated non-Earth worlds.

It just wasn't the only reason he was here.

Nick leaned forward, propping his elbows up and clasping his hands.

"If I had known about your status with Agent Coulson, I would have kept you in the loop."

Barton coughed slightly and looked away, plainly uncomfortable with discussing his 'status.'

Nick hid a smirk. Phil could certainly do worse.

He gave Barton a hard look.

"If you hurt him, I'll see to it no one will even know that there's a body to look _for_. Do we have an understanding?"

Barton tilted his head at Fury and, after a straight-faced affirming nod, smiled cheekily and put his report on the desk.

"Crystal, sir."

They met up with Ben and Edward in the town. For all that had happened, they _had_ only been gone a few days.

The townspeople gaped and gawked at them. Arriving in a column of blue light with someone in a floor-length red cape and who disappeared after a brief farewell a moment later was, perhaps, not the subtlest entrance they'd ever made.

Hansel looked at the crowd and dusted off his vest.

"Shit," He said, looking down at himself. He looked back at where Thor had disappeared.

Gretel raised an eyebrow at him.

"Shit," He moaned.

"What?"

"I left my coat there."

Gretel rolled her eyes at him and stomped inside the tavern. It was the likeliest candidate for where the rest of their group was.

Hansel followed her, still mourning the loss.

Edward bellowed happily on seeing them. Ben winced and turned, hand clapped to the ear that had unfortunately been right next to Edward.

Gretel wandered over to them but Hansel veered off towards the nearest empty table. He was dying to know what was in the case. It was promisingly heavy.

He laid it on the table and unzipped it, laying the flap back and looking inside.

It was a tightly organized jumble of things. Hansel picked up the recognized tablet and turned it on.

"Hi," Tony said. Hansel almost replied before Tony continued and he realized it was a recording. "So, I gave you some toys. There are a couple of tablets in case anything happens to this one, some loaded-up terabyte external harddrives, a bunch of precision tools and a few MP3 players. Also this."

Tony held up a little device. Hansel spotted it in the case and pulled it out.

"It's a hand-cranked generator. I made it myself." Tony winked. "It'll power everything in here. This thing with Amora might go down any minute so I'm rushing a little here. Jarvis has loaded instructions for how everything works onto… everything."

Tony gave him a soft, sincere smile.

"Good luck out there. Oh, also, when this closes, do me a favor and tap the file that says 'Iron Man,' okay?"

Tony smirked and bounced his eyebrows. The video closed.

Hansel looked up and realized everyone was staring at him, gobsmacked.

He looked back down at the tablet in his hand and saw the 'Iron Man' file.

He set the generator down and tapped it open.

Instead of the mechanical diagrams Hansel had been expecting, it was music. The tavern filled with the sounds of Black Sabbath and, soon after, Hansel's delighted laughter.

Gretel and Ben were both regarding him with wide eyes and cocked heads. Edward was pattering his large fingers against his thigh in time with the beat.

After a moment Hansel tapped the screen and the music stopped. Edward grunted his disapproval.

"Nice," Hansel grinned, holding the tablet lovingly. He looked at Gretel. "What did Steve give you?"

Hansel was glad the two of them had a reputation for strange machines as well as witch hunting. Now that the music had stopped, people were mostly going back to ignoring them. He looked forward to explaining the technology to Ben, Ed and Gretel later. And he didn't know what a pterrabite was but he was excited about finding out.

Gretel withdrew the paper from her blouse.

It was a pencil sketch. A very good pencil sketch of Gretel with her hand against the window of that terrifyingly tall building.

"Oh," Ben said, craning his neck to see it. "That's… also nice. Who's Steve?" He asked in a tone that entirely failed to be casual.

"Captain America," Gretel said, tucking the drawing back out of sight.

Ben frowned.

"So… he's a sailor?"

Gretel shook her head. She looked a little sad, Hansel thought.

Clearly Steve had been a better kisser than Clint.

"He's a – you know what, doesn't matter. He's worlds away. He's gone. The drop with the witch went okay?" Gretel said, cutting that conversation off at the knees.

Ben gave her a dubious look, obviously wanting to pursue the 'Steve' topic but not brave enough to push against Gretel's reluctance.

"Yep. Townsfolk flamed her corpse up good and proper. Edward's got the money. Oh! Also, I talked to a trader who came through. She said there'd been a kidnapping a few towns over. Might be a witch."

Ben gave them a satisfied look.

Hansel reached out a hand to steal Ben's beer in congratulations and stopped, the skin of his naked wrist catching his attention.

Hansel went cold with panic.

He circled the table, stumbling in his urgency to get to the bags they'd left behind.

"My alarm, where's my alarm?"

"I… think I left it in Asgard. Shit." Gretel said, with not nearly enough anxiety.

"'Shit?'" Hansel repeated, incredulous.

"Don't give me that look. It's not like you need it anymore."

Gretel's eyes were twinkling and Hansel had to pause in his searching and try to parse her words. They didn't make any sense.

"Gretel, what?"

Gretel started picking at her nails.

"So, while you were off gallivanting with Amora, Frigga healed your body."

She stole Ben's beer and toast him, mouth stretched wide in a grin.

"What?" He repeated.

She rolled her eyes, which Hansel thought was vastly unfair.

"You don't have the sugar sickness anymore."

Hansel sat on the floor.

He looked at his pale wrist.

"Really?"

Gretel put the beer down and took his hands, squeezing them and pulling him up.

"Really," She said, with undeniable happiness.

Hansel laughed. He felt… he didn't know how he felt. It had been a part of him for so long. He'd enjoyed being Clint Barton in no small measure because he'd been free of the illness, but the surety that he'd be coming back to it had always been in the back of his mind.

He stole Gretel's stolen beer, ignoring the indignant sound of protest Ben made.

"To the psychotic bitch Amora!" He said through a giggle.

He drank until the mug was empty and cheerfully called for another round.

Amora's body had quirks to get used to, of course, but two days in her Vanaheimr lover's bed had done wonders.

Loki waited for a week.

He'd spent the rest of the time stretching, so to speak. Practicing his magic like working stiff, weary limbs until it once more channeled through him naturally and easily.

He'd paid a few visits to the man of iron's tower and watched, invisible, as his brother swooned over his pretty mortal.

Loki could only endure so much of his doe-eyed foolishness before he had to take himself away.

He gave it a week, and then he layered himself in illusions and went back to Asgard.

He dropped his invisibility in an empty hallway and walked confidently around the corner. The guards paid him no mind – he was, to their eyes, merely another guard.

Frigga bid him enter when he knocked on her door, and Loki did so with only a small hesitation.

She was at her spinning wheel. Her hair was loose around her shoulders.

She was beautiful, as she always was.

Loki gave her the bowing salute that was proper for the station he was pretending to be.

"My queen," He said, rising.

Whatever lie he had been about to deliver died unspoken.

Frigga was smiling at him warmly, knowingly.

She rose from the wheel and gathered Loki in an embrace.

Loki dropped his illusions.

"You should not be here," Frigga said. She did not let him go.

"When did you know it was me?" He asked. It was undeniable that she did.

Frigga drew back and cupped Loki's face in her strong hands.

"From the moment Thor lifted Mjolnir and you doubled yourself." She smoothed back his long, blond hair.

Loki turned his face into her hands, greedy and heart-sore. Things had escalated so quickly after Thor's botched coronation. There were so many things he wanted to ask her.

He stayed silent.

A sound at the door had him jumping backwards, cloaking himself as a guard once more.

Loki's mouth went dry when the Allfather entered.

Odin passed him by with only the smallest of glances, waving a dismissive hand at him.

Loki bowed and retreated. He sent a double to walk down the hallway and out of sight for the benefit of the guards that had trailed Odin. Loki settled himself beside the door to listen.

It was no use – the door was spelled and he couldn't break through the magics without risking detection.

He waited.

A few long minutes later, Odin reappeared and left without even a glance in Loki's direction.

Loki detached himself from the wall and went back into Frigga's room.

She looked at him with unerring accuracy even though he was still invisible. Had she always been able to do that, he wondered, or was there some lack in Amora's magics that he hadn't compensated for? It certainly painted new dimensions on the pranks he'd played in his youth if it was the former.

Loki closed the door and dropped his spells.

"You should not linger in Asgard, Loki." Frigga said, not unkindly. "Odin is distracted with his anger but that will pass."

"He disagrees with your decision about Thor?" Loki asked, easily imagining it.

"As I have often disagreed with his decisions about you." Frigga answered.

Loki looked away. Yes, he thought, it must have been quite a shock when Odin returned from the wars with a Jotunn babe in arms.

"My son," Frigga started.

"I am not your son." Loki snapped, more harshly than he'd intended.

Frigga frowned at him and removed the space between them, once again taking his face in her hands.

"You have always been and will always be mine, Loki. Does the flesh matter so much to you? Are you less Loki that you stand before me as Amora?"

Loki tried to look away but Frigga's hands on him were firm, making him meet her eyes.

"Do you have any idea how much you hurt me when you threw yourself from the bifrost? What aching hollow you left behind when I believed you dead?"

Frigga gathered him in her arms once more.

The moment stretched but it couldn't last forever. When at last Frigga kissed his brow and withdrew, Loki felt oddly light.

"In a few months, I will set Amora's mind to rights." She said gently.

Loki's spine stiffened.

He met her eyes and heard the things she wasn't saying.

Her forgiveness didn't change that he was a criminal, that he had killed and enslaved and would be punished.

That he would not escape his prison a second time.

Loki did not protest. It would not sway her, not on a thing like this.

Frigga crossed the room and sat down once more at her wheel, setting it spinning with a familiar steady clicking that Loki had spent hours and hours listening to growing up.

Loki bowed deeply to his mother and took himself away.

Natasha found Coulson sitting in one of Stark's ridiculously comfortable lounge chairs on the roof of the tower.

He didn't look up from his steady regard of the city when she sat down next to him but Natasha didn't have any doubt he'd known it was her from the moment she opened the access door.

She'd been avoiding... everyone, essentially, but especially Clint and Coulson for a week.

She'd gone to SHIELD and threatened Jasper until he'd put her on whatever assignments were available. None of them had needed her skillsets but _she_ had needed the distance they'd given her.

She was still in her tack suit and the fabric stuck a little against whatever the chair was made of when she moved to cross her legs.

"I hear Banner and Foster are making strides in their project," She said.

Coulson made an affirming noise. It wasn't what she was here to talk about, of course, but Coulson wasn't pushing.

The city had done a remarkable job of recovering. There were places where the silhouettes of buildings were still marred by the Chitauri attack but as a whole New York was well on its way to bouncing back.

"Between the two of them, Stark and Stark's resources? I'll be astonished if I don't have to add a checkbox to the mission reports for 'no longer science fiction.'"

"I kissed Clint," Natasha said, putting it out there abruptly.

Coulson only nodded, though, unaffected by the sudden change of topic.

"He told me. We talked about it."

Natasha felt taken aback by his easy acceptance. Being off-balance had always made her want to strike out, so she added, "I also gave him a blowjob. There was some reciprocal fingering."

That did get an eyebrow raised.

Natasha kept her eyes on the skyline, feeling small.

"It was when he was Hansel. I haven't told him. I -" She bit off the rest and shook her head. "He's better off not knowing that."

Coulson tipped his head in not-quite-agreement.

"He hasn't done well lately with people deciding what he should and shouldn't know."

It was said without a hint of accusation. It didn't stop the words from making Natasha close her eyes with regret.

"He told me you looked out for him, while I was dead. That you helped him. Were there for him."

Coulson reached across the space and took her hand with one of his.

"Thank you."

Natasha swallowed.

In the periphery of her vision, the access door opened slightly. She knew better than to look at it directly – it would be stupid to let someone spying on you know they'd been caught – but the image in the corner of her eye didn't make any sense.

She turned to look at it directly.

A stuffed animal, a gray, fluffy bear with black glass eyes and a stitched frown that gave it a vaguely worried expression, trotted over to Coulson on its four short feet. It couldn't be more than ten inches tall.

It scaled his chair leg and climbed up Coulson's arm. Coulson's expression didn't change in the slightest from his professional mask as the bear settled on his shoulder and turned its face into Coulson's neck with a little mechanical sigh of contentment.

"We're working on its separation anxiety," Coulson said after Natasha spent a minute just staring. "Stark said it was a 'welcome back from being dead/in a magical coma' present, but I suspect I'm beta testing it."

Coulson scratched the little thing between its ears and it warbled softly in pleasure.

"Okay," Natasha said at length, at a loss for any other response.

She shook herself.

"Clint misses you," Coulson said.

"Clint never misses," Natasha replied. She rubbed her eyes, annoyed at herself for the rejoinder. She'd been spending too much time around Sitwell.

"I've missed you." Coulson said quietly, and Natasha did look up at that.

"What you and Barton have," He started, then paused, rolling a shoulder slightly in what Natasha knew was a tell that his healing wounds were bothering him. He moved the bear to his lap and shifted back in the chair.

"What you and Barton have is different than what we have, Natasha." He said. "You're more dear to him than I think you realize. And I know you love him."

Natasha flexed her hands and kept her face smooth.

"I won't come between you," She said. She met his eyes. "What I did... it was just moments of weakness. It doesn't have to be anything more than that. I'll talk to Clint and we can go back to what we were."

Coulson stroked the bear's fur quietly for a moment.

"I don't think that's what you want," He said.

Natasha inhaled but Coulson cut her off.

"And I know it's not what Clint or I want."

She looked at him sharply.

"As I said, we talked about it." Coulson said evenly.

"What are you suggesting?" Natasha regarded Coulson carefully.

"I'm suggesting we share."

"Share?"

Coulson nodded and gently extricated the bear from its attempts to burrow inside his jacket.

She settled her gaze on the ridiculous thing and found herself looking instead at Coulson's hands. They were strong and scarred and capable and entirely suited to the man. It was good to see them moving again.

"How would that work, exactly?" Natasha asked and only realized after the words were out that she wasn't actually protesting.

Coulson smiled, hearing it, and at the expression Natasha felt something small and tentative take hold inside herself.

"It doesn't have to be complicated. Clint wants both of us."

"I don't," Natasha stopped and changed what she was going to say. "I like you, Phil. And I respect you, but I'm not in – I'm, I don't feel the same way about you that I feel about Clint. And I didn't think you had any romantic interest in me, either."

"No, I'm, ah," Coulson's lip twitched, amused, "Quite gay. But Clint isn't."

Natasha took that in and was deciding how to respond when a projectile landed between her breasts so suddenly and unexpectedly that she nearly punched Coulson out of reflex, even though it obviously hadn't come from him.

She plucked the small thing out of her cleavage.

"You were going to let me talk to her," Coulson said, in a louder-than-conversational tone.

It was a goddamn skittle.

Natasha felt cold, then hot, caught out. She had no idea where Clint was until he called back from the floor below them.

"You were taking too long."

He scaled the outside wall and swung himself up. For nearly anyone else it would have been stupidly dangerous but for Clint it was done with half a thought.

She stared at him, tense and unsure of herself but Clint just smiled at her from his crouch on the roof ledge.

She threw the skittle at him and he caught it with his mouth, chewing with unhidden smug happiness.

He hopped down and walked over to her, bending into her space and taking her mouth in a kiss.

Natasha tensed, startled by the suddenness of it but when Clint's tongue swept the seam of her lips she parted them willingly.

He tasted like the skittle, of course, and the width of his smile made the kiss a little sloppy.

It wasn't a long kiss – Natasha was very aware of Coulson watching them – but it was good.

Coulson was holding the bear back with two fingers against its collar.

It was making little grunty, displeased noises and plainly fixed on reaching Clint.

"I think it's jealous." Coulson said dryly, eyes glittering with humor.

"So long as it's the only one, I think we can deal." Clint scooped the bear up and cuddled it. He tossed it at Natasha and went to kiss Coulson too.

Natasha looked at the bear, who looked back up at her with that stitched, puzzled frown, and then they both turned to watch the men making out.

Clint pulled off with a ridiculous smacking of his lips, which garnered an eye roll from Coulson.

"So, are we good? I can have a harem?"

"Harem?" Coulson said incredulously, running a thumb over his mouth.

"I think you need more than two people to call it a harem," Natasha pointed out. She looked down at her handful, then back up. "The bear doesn't count."

Clint wrinkled his nose and tilted his head at the toy.

"Eh, he's not my type."

He looked at Natasha, waiting for an answer.

She thought about it.

Having Clint. Sharing, yes, but _having_ him.

She thought about sitting with Coulson while he'd been trapped in that stasis, drawn to him because she'd trusted him and missed him.

The possibility of it opened up inside her and she met Coulson's eyes, wanting to know that he really was okay with this.

She found what she needed in his steady gaze.

"I'll need to buy some flowy pants," She said with a put-upon sigh and they both grinned at her.

It wouldn't be easy, she knew. There would be negotiations and missteps and an ungodly amount of commentary from Stark once he figured it out.

It would be worth it.

-The End-

I have left myself some openings if I go for a sequel, but I'm also hoping there's enough resolution here that I'm not leaving anyone cursing my name if I'm slow about getting around to it. I've averaged something like 1,200 words a day for the last two months writing this - I'm taking a break! :D

Thank you so, so, so much to everyone who's left feedback - it's meant the world to me.

I sincerely hope you've enjoyed the story. Bye!


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